In this weekend’s Times Magazine, I have a column explaining the tight link between education and income for religious groups in this country. The most educated groups, like Hindus and Jews, are the most affluent, while the least educated are the least affluent. The chart with the column has more details.

On Twitter, Matt Chingos, an education scholar and the co-author of an excellent book on college completion, asked whether the relationship depended on the exact cutoffs for income and educational attainment. It does not.

The chart in the magazine looks at the percentage of people with a four-year college degree and the percentage of people with family income of at least $75,000 a year, using data from Pew. Here are the percentages if the education cutoff is changed to at least some college (including a two-year degree) and the family income cutoff is changed to $50,000:

%, at least some college %, family income $50k+ Hindus 84 80 Reform Jews 83 81 Unitarians 81 55 Conservative Jews 79 74 Anglicans/Episcopalians 76 63 Buddhists 74 56 Orthodox Christians 68 57 Presbyterians 64 60 Secular 60 55 Mormons 60 54 Methodists 56 53 Lutherans 53 54 TOTAL U.S. 50 48 Catholics 47 49 Muslims 47 41 Baptists 40 36 Unaffiliated religious 39 37 Pentecostals 33 29 Jehovah’s Witnesses 31 35



Here are the percentages of people with a post-graduate degree and with family income of at least $100,000 a year:

%, post-grad degree %, family income, $100k+ Hindus 43 48 Reform Jews 55 35 Conservative Jews 43 35 Unitarians 26 29 Buddhists 22 26 Anglicans/Episcopalians 35 25 Orthodox Christians 28 18 Presbyterians 26 18 Secular 23 16 Methodists 20 13 TOTAL U.S. 18 11 Mormons 16 10 Catholics 19 10 Muslims 16 10 Lutherans 16 9 Baptists 11 6 Unaffiliated religious 12 6 Pentecostals 7 3 Jehovah’s Witnesses 9 3

In every case, the correlation between education and income is extremely strong. As I note in the magazine, the relationship goes both ways: more affluent people tend to produce more educated children, and more educated people tend to earn much more than less educated people. It’s one more reminder that the financial value of education has never been greater.