/sci/ - Science & Math

>>7659558
Chemical engineer, 4th year.

Each point is an individual state, given the fact that America's government system is set up so that each individual state has different policies regarding how welfare is distributed, accessibility to low-income housing, the fact that the lowest income states are largely rural which have lower crime rates than urban areas, as well as the fact that the sample population size is drastically different from one point to another the R values are actually very indicative of a trend.

A low R value also does not mean that the data does not fit, just that variance around the line of fit is high. When you have as many uncontrolled variables as these graphs do, an R value below 50% can still indicate a general trend.

For example, economic freedom (index score) correlates to life expectancy with an R of 0.3, but it is still accepted as a valid assessment that these two things in general are related because there are so many uncontrolled factors that come into play when comparing such large sample populations which are governed with different policies.