Sunday 30 August 2009

The least surprising correlation of all time (updated)

One wonders what Marty G from the Standard would make of this graph.


The New York Times Economix blog offers us the above graph, showing that kids from higher income families get higher average SAT scores. Clearly it's another example of the unfair advantages that the wealthy get in our society. Just because their parents are wealthy kids get higher SAT scores. It is obvious that government intervention is needed to equalise incomes and SAT scores at the same time.

(HT: Greg Mankiw)

Update: For more on this issue see here and here.

2 comments:

bk drinkwater said...

Pre-emptive mocking: I like it!

But clearly, you're reading the graph wrong: it's obvious that a kid's high SAT score is boosting her parents' incomes somehow. Because we can tell that sort of thing by looking at a graph.

Paul Walker said...

So the way to make the income distribution more even is to make smart kids more stupid. That explains much of the NZ education system!!!