A Tale of Two Zip Codes

Tonight, along Houghton’s Genesee river banks, I cast my fishing line and hear the ghost of Charles Dickens howling – “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”  Downstream there was a sense of the best of times. The affluent citizens of the Pittsford area kept warm in their gas-fueled homes after tending to their white-collared professional careers and driving their new BMWs through the streets of one of the most successful elite super zip towns of America.   Upstream the working class folks of Belfast were heated by the glow of a wood stove, modestly getting by driving in a late model Chevy pickup coming from their blue-collared job in one of the poorest counties in the state.  

My fictional scenario dramatizes the national economic debate called income inequality. Yet, as a whole, the two Genesee Valley towns offer a glimpse into the true root of the cause of income inequality between the new elite class and the lower middle class.  While many carelessly characterize Pittsford as greedy, selfish, and very secular, the irony is most affluent towns are following traditional American values more so than their working class counterparts.   While we have always had rich people in the US, it appears that cultural norms that once glued us together have created a chasm between the classes. In the 1950s, there weren’t super rich towns. The rich and poor lived together, worshipped together, and sent their children to the same school. Today, the rich live in super zips, also known as the zip codes with the highest per capita income and college graduations in the country; yet, the glue (i.e. education, marriage, religiosity, and community involvement) holding income classes together is coming apart.  

We know a college degree creates higher earning potential.  In Pittsford, over 70% of the population has a college degree, with a median household income north of $130,000.  In Belfast, just 12% of its citizens have a college degree and have a household median income of $40,000.  Colleges provide proficiency in a specific majors and create networking opportunities with fellow students and alumni alike to secure future jobs. Local companies recruit students who will transition quickly at their firm.  In the Genesee Valley, engineering firms recruit from Rochester Institute of Technology, hospitals will recruit nurses from St. John Fisher College and NGOs recruit at Houghton.    

Marriage is the cornerstone of our culture and creates stronger economic and social power for children.  Single family homes accounts for a third of the reason why income inequality has grown since 1979.  In Belfast, the divorce rate is nearly twice that of Pittsford.  We  have recently seen the rise of assortative mating by couples subconsciously using college degrees to screen marriage prospects such as many Ivy league alums marry other Ivy league alums.  Such clustering of educated married couples into Pittsford creates a brain drain from lower middle class towns. 

Community volunteerism helps develop what social scientist Robert Putnam calls “social capital”.  A community with high social capital is more likely to have members that volunteer in their youth sports leagues and their fire departments.  It will also be place where neighbors help a family that loses their house to a fire or an unemployed father trying to find a job.  These communities tend to have lower crime rates, better health, great public schools, and better economic growth rates.  Pittsford boosts one of the top high schools in the nation and list over 30 community events including parades, festivals, concerts, dances, and outdoor movies.  Belfast only lists five. 

Finally, there is religion.  Church organizations create nearly half of the charity and half of the volunteerism in this country.  According to psychology professor David Myers of Hope College, people that are religious tend to create a happy community and a happy community tends to be contagious.  Living in Pittsford you are 65% percent more likely to belong and attend a church than Belfast.   

In the 1960s President Johnson declared a war on poverty. More than fifty years and 22 trillion dollars later, we have not changed the poverty rate. The war was lost because many of the programs crushed our traditional values and failed to calculate human nature. Today’s war on inequality will double down on these misguided policies and expect a different result. My contention with Pittsford and the super zips isn’t their success or affluence; rather, “they don’t preach what they practice” notes Charles Murray, a social scientist 

Let us pass policy to increase equitable education through tax vouchers for private and charter schools, strengthen marriage by eliminating the marriage tax penalty, and restore good paying blue collar jobs by eliminating unnecessary regulation on construction, fracking, lumber mills, fishers, farmers and coal miners.
As I throw my fishing line into the Genesee River for the last time tonight, I think of the preaching of Jesus who said, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”