tdaxp

Note: This is a selection from Redefining the Gap, part of tdaxp's SummerBlog '06

Poverty will be measured by GDP per capita, measured by purchasing power parity (CIA 2006c). Estimates are recent, with most being from 2004 or 2005. The information is listed in US Dollars. My study will scale GDP per capita so that poorest value is 0 and the richest value is 1. For each state, it's value will be calculated by taking the difference between that state's value and the lowest state's value, divided by the difference between the highest state's value and the lowest state's value. The logic to read in and scale this data is included in the appendix, particularly in the function scaleData().