[PEN-L:5254] Data on Inequality by State?

[Arthur MacEwan <macewan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear PEN People:

I am looking for some data on income inequality by state.
Can anyone out there give me a lead?  Ideally I would like a
single variable on income inequality for each of the 50
states and DC -- a gini coefficient, or some other such
measure.  (The ratio of the percent of families in the top
quintile to the percent of families in the bottom quintile
would do.)

The reason I would like these data has to do with some work
on "explaining" the percent of kids enrolled in private
schools.  I have been experimenting with a simple regression
in which the dependent variable is private school enrollment
as a percent of total enrollment in elementary and secondary
schools by state.  Independent variables that seem to play a
large role in "explaining" the variation of this dependent
variable are: percent of the population that is school age,
percent of the population that is black, and percent of the
population that is catholic.

I would like to test the hypothesis that, even when "holding
constant" these three variables, a higher degree of
inequality in a state is associated with a higher percent of
kids in private schools.  I realize there will be some
problems because whatever measure of inequality I use will
probably be correlated with the percent of the population
that is black (and perhaps with the percent of the population
that is catholic).  Nonetheless, I would like to see what I
can see.

Of course, aside from the issue of data, I would appreciate
hearing from anyone who is interested in the substance of
this work or who has suggestions regarding the issues or
sources.

Thanks in advance for help.

Arthur MacEwan
MACEWAN@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx