No Lds Bankruptcy Link?

[USU78]

Just scanning quickly through the copy of the study I have, I would say your analysis seems to be correct. The cause (or causes) of Utah's high bankruptcy rates is still a mystery, but it would appear (from this study, at least) that teachings and practices in Mormonism are not the problem.

I still maintain that Utahns' economic woes (finding expression in the high foreclosure and bankruptcy rates) are, at least in great part, by design . . . it is, for example, no accident that the boundaries for ancient Deseret are roughly the boundaries for the highest concentration of federal land ownership in the lower 48 states -- and that Utah, smack dab in the middle of it, is in a lock box.

[Scott Lloyd]

Did the study ask whether the people are full tithe-payers? I believe that is the hypothesis that has been at the root of the assumptions. If they didn't test for that, of what value is the study? The respondents should not have been divided into Mormon/non-Mormon groups, but tithe-payer/non tithe-payer. That's the only way to test the hypothesis.

The survey did ask about donations to religious groups with which the respondents said they identified.

From the article published in the law review:

Developing filing rates for tithe payers is difficult for two reasons. First, the Church does not publish data regarding tithing, thus we must look to other sources that estimate how many Mormons tithe. Second, it is difficult to know what our tithe payers would be contributing were they not in bankruptcy. For instance, the amount a debtor discloses on the questionnaire may or may not represent a full 10% of his or her current income, or what is termed a "full tithe" in the Mormon literature. If it is not a full 10%, this does not mean that the debtor did not customarily pay a full 10% when his or her economic situation was not distressed. We will assume that those debtors who qualify as Mormon tithe payers for the purposes of this study are, or would normally be, considered full tithe payers, paying 10% of their income to the Church. This then allows us to draw from sources that refer to full tithe payers only.

[Scott Lloyd]

Was there an actual statistician involved, or just these two LDS lawyers?

In the law review article, the authors identify themselves as 2005 graduates of Harvard Law School and acknowledge "the incredible encouragement and mentorship of Professor Elizabeth Warren." She is a co-author of The Two-Income Trap and The Fragile Middle Class, two books about bankruptcy in the United States. I presume she has some academic expertise in statistics, but I'm not altogether familiar with her background.

[Scott Lloyd]

Ah, here is a link to the Suffolk University Law Review. On the home page, you will find a link to the study.

http://www.law.suffolk.edu/highlights/stuo...ew/XL2007_3.cfm

You may thus read it and draw your own conclusions rather than waiting for me to digest it for you.

Enjoy.

[jcake]

I have been told be some people who work in the finance field(mortgages, etc.) that the laws governing lending in this state allow for more risk than those of many other states. Perhaps that is a factor in this issure that muddies the statistics because it makes it difficult to compare bankruptcy rates from state to state.

[spinner]

I am reading the report and hope to produce some substantive thoughts on it, but more generally, two questions:

1) What expertise do Johnson and Wright have in conducting statistical research? Their one qualification, according to the article, is that they are 2005 graduates of Harvard law.

2) Why on earth is a law review publishing this? Having in the not too distant past served as an editor of a law review, I am dumbfounded that this article was chosen for publication--what is the legal question being addressed here?

In other words, we have a couple of guys writing outside of their own area of expertise who get published in a journal that similarly lacks the expertise to properly evaluate the quality of their research. Not saying that this disqualifies the study out of hand--of course it doesn't--but it does immediately raise my level of skepticism about the rigorousness both of the research and the review to which it was subjected.

[urroner]

Comments from the SLTrib: http://origin.sltrib.com/ci_6257216

LDS faith, bankruptcy: No link

New study shows Utah's high rate of filings has little to do with the religion's life tenets

By Steven Oberbeck

The Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated: 06/28/2007 11:53:43 PM MDT

At first glance, it seems logical to assume Utah's high bankruptcy rate is connected to the large number of Mormons living in the state.

After all, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints encourages members to pay 10 percent of their incomes in tithing, to marry young and to have a lot of kids - factors that suggest LDS families face extra challenges to make ends meet.

Yet a new study by two recent Harvard Law School graduates - both LDS Church members - indicates that theory may need to be abandoned.

Ezekial Johnson, who wrote the study "Are Mormons Bankrupting Utah? Evidence From the Bankruptcy Courts" with co-researcher James Wright, said the authors found that non-Mormons were slightly more likely than LDS Church members to go bankrupt.

"Frankly, we were stunned when we first ran the data and saw the results," Johnson said. "To be honest, those results went against all our initial thoughts."

The study was based on 281 surveys Johnson and Wright collected in Utah in August 2004, when the state led the nation in bankruptcies per household. Utahns filing for bankruptcy were asked to fill out voluntary questionnaires after their mandatory first meeting of creditors. The survey included questions about debtors' religious affiliations and charitable donations.

Wright and Johnson became interested in the topic

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studying under Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor and authority on consumer bankruptcies.

"We had seen accounts that suggested a tie between the LDS Church and the rate of bankruptcies in Utah and this gave us the opportunity to ask some questions," said Wright, now a Salt Lake City real estate attorney.

One question they wrestled with was how to determine if those who pay tithing to the LDS Church are filing bankruptcy in a greater percentages than those who don't.

A 2005 bankruptcy study by The Salt Lake Tribune found that about 13 percent of Utah bankruptcy filers reported tithing in the year prior to going broke, with 12 percent paying tithes to the LDS Church.

Wright and Johnson approached the numbers from a different angle. Their methodology concluded that if the overall percentage of Mormons in Utah who paid tithing exceeded 35.5 percent, then Mormon tithe payers are actually less likely to file for bankruptcy than non-tithe payers. When the data came in, it showed 36.2 percent of Mormons paid tithing of $1,000 or more a year.

Still, they conceded, determining the rate of bankruptcies filed by tithe payers is difficult since the LDS Church doesn't publish its data. Also, it is difficult to know what tithe payers would have contributed if they were not under economic distress, Wright said.

Another finding: While children typically increase the likelihood of families filing bankruptcy, in Utah that pressure was less severe. Johnson and Wright knew from Warren's studies that, nationally, households with children are 300 percent more likely to file for bankruptcy than households without children. But in Utah, that percentage dropped to 191 percent.

The Salt Lake Tribune's analysis found nearly two-thirds of bankruptcy filers in Utah had one or more dependent children, making them twice as likely to be supporting children under 18 as the average household nationally.

Jeff Thredgold, president of Salt Lake City-based Thredgold Economic Associations and a consultant to Zions Bank, said large families invariably will put Utah among the top 15 states in bankruptcy filings.

"When you have 50 percent more children per adult in a household there is going to be increased financial pressure. But the fact that there are more children per household [in Utah than nationally] is probably more of a cultural issue than a religious one," he said, contending other faiths in the state also have larger families, recognizing Utah is a good place to raise children.

Although Thredgold would have liked to see a larger survey sample, he said the study will be worthwhile if it helps counter some myths about why bankruptcies are higher in Utah.

Utah State University Professor Jean Lown, who has done extensive research on Utah bankruptcy rates, said the Harvard study's findings that slightly fewer Mormons file for bankruptcy in Utah than non-Mormons is in line with her own research.

"It is a fascinating study and a good start," she said. "And it does address some issues that need to be considered."

Johnson and Wright conceded their study doesn't answer the question of why Utah's bankruptcies-per-household rates is higher than the national average, but speculated that the reasons were the same as The Salt Lake Tribune's study.

It painted a picture of families living paycheck to paycheck when they were suddenly stymied financially by unexpected job loss, a medical crisis, business failure or divorce - forces or events that typically contribute to bankruptcy everywhere.

[Scott Lloyd]

Okay then.

ASSUMING non mormon family size in utah is equal to national average 3.14, and

Mormons are 62.4% of the population, that means Mormons ave family size is 3.83.

Assuming that there are 2 million people in Utah,

that means there are 322,480 mormon households(57.4%) and 239,490 (46.6%) non mormon households.

This also assumes my math is correct, which is probably the biggest assumption.

My point is that children don't file bankruptcy. Therefore it make no sense to draw any conclusions by comparing mormons as percentage of total Utah population, as opposed to as a percentage of total Utah households.

Is that what the study's authors did? Why don't you take a look at it and get back to us.

Also, regarding your assumption that Mormons are the only ones in the state with larger-than-average families, Thredgold's quoted comments in the Tribune story posted by Urroner contradict that notion.

My sense is that the Mormons-have-huge-families stereotype is largely a myth in this day and age.

[Scott Lloyd]

I have been told be some people who work in the finance field(mortgages, etc.) that the laws governing lending in this state allow for more risk than those of many other states. Perhaps that is a factor in this issure that muddies the statistics because it makes it difficult to compare bankruptcy rates from state to state.

I spoke yesterday with Dave Anderton, who wrote the Deseret Morning News story I cited in the opening post. He wonders whether lenders are taking into account tithe paying when they qualify borrowers for mortgages. That is an automatic 10 percent reduction in income that needs to be factored in.

Of course, loan applicants need to consider that as well, but both sides bear some responsibility, in my opinion.

[juliann]

My sense is that the Mormons-have-huge-families stereotype is largely a myth in this day and age.

There are stats on that. If you come up with something that could make Mormons look bad...they will suddenly be interested in them. I'm still laughing my head off at this thread and the sudden drive to find out everything about a study by those who wouldn't hear of such things until the stats didn't make the Mormons the villains.

Meanwhile, as disappointing as it may be to the countermos to find out that non-LDS have higher bankruptcy rates than LDS in Utah...someone has finally taken the time to study one of their favorite stats and they are stuck with it until they come up with something better.

[juliann]

Thus Utah's potential wealth (especially mineral wealth) is lying unused in a lock box, both by federal regulation (the present house of reps. just made it impossible to get oil out of the Utah/Wyoming/Colorado oil shale) and federal reservation (the last US president's declaration of Utah's environmentally-friendly coal to be non-exploitable), and Utah's citizens suffer as a result. Just how are Utah's citizens to make a living if the sources of economic livelihood are placed forever out of reach? Nevada, similarly situated, turns to gaming. Are we to follow suit?

Interesting theory. But I don't think the countermos are the least bit interested in getting to the bottom of a disturbing situation for all residents of Utah.

[Nighthawke]

The federal government owns 67.1% of the real estate in Utah -- this is largely untaxed, unproductive land, forcing the citizenry to make whatever living they can on about 20% of the land (the State owns but 7.2%) -- which is ultimately the source of all wealth.

Thus Utah's potential wealth (especially mineral wealth) is lying unused in a lock box, both by federal regulation (the present house of reps. just made it impossible to get oil out of the Utah/Wyoming/Colorado oil shale) and federal reservation (the last US president's declaration of Utah's environmentally-friendly coal to be non-exploitable), and Utah's citizens suffer as a result. Just how are Utah's citizens to make a living if the sources of economic livelihood are placed forever out of reach? Nevada, similarly situated, turns to gaming. Are we to follow suit?

USU "It's amusing to see the usual suspects so tenaciously clinging to yet another busted myth" 78

Feds OK Oil-Shale Mining in Utah

Oil Shale mining is still experimental. You can't just go in there and boom, you've got oil. Well actually you can if you've got tens of billions of dollars but it would still take 10-20 years just to build the infrastructure...

[cjcampbell]

I still maintain that Utahns' economic woes (finding expression in the high foreclosure and bankruptcy rates) are, at least in great part, by design . . . it is, for example, no accident that the boundaries for ancient Deseret are roughly the boundaries for the highest concentration of federal land ownership in the lower 48 states -- and that Utah, smack dab in the middle of it, is in a lock box.

So why kick Alaska out of your theory? Because it does not fit?

Alaska has the highest federal land ownership of any state, yet it does not have a high bankruptcy rate.

[juliann]

So why kick Alaska out of your theory? Because it does not fit?

Alaska has the highest federal land ownership of any state, yet it does not have a high bankruptcy rate.

It also doesn't have the highly concentrated urban populations does it? Plus...there is that oil pipeline thing and all.

[juliann]

Feds OK Oil-Shale Mining in Utah

Oil Shale mining is still experimental. You can't just go in there and boom, you've got oil. Well actually you can if you've got tens of billions of dollars but it would still take 10-20 years just to build the infrastructure...

Wow...."Parts of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming contain enough petroleum in theory to meet U.S. energy needs for a century,"

But this is the problem with Feds owning your land, "The U.S. House on Wednesday reigned in more ambitious plans by the Interior Department to open more of the West to commercial oil-shale development. The House measure yanks funding set aside for preparation of regulations for more oil-shale leasing."

Why do I get the continual feeling that politicians are in bed with entities that are going to make sure America is never independent of foreign oil?

[cjcampbell]

As one who pretends to actually know something about economics, I have to say that researchers have been trying for decades to fathom why some states have a higher bankruptcy rate than others. There are several theories from respected researchers (as opposed to those with some sort of agenda). The fact is, anyone who solves the problem could make a lot of money as a consultant to credit companies.

But here are the theories:

1) Poverty causes bankruptcy. Unfortunately for this theory, all but one of the states with the highest bankruptcy rates also have higher than median incomes. Only West Virginia, which has the lowest median income of any state, has a high bankruptcy rate and low median income. So it is not poverty.

2) Unemployment causes bankruptcy. That theory does not hold up, either. Some states, such as Texas and Alaska, have higher than average unemployment but low bankruptcy rates.

3) Gambling causes bankruptcy. Well, that might explain why Nevada has a high bankruptcy rate, but Utah? Besides, New Jersey's rate is not high.

4 Medical bills. There is no correlation with the presence or lack of medical insurance in a state with its bankruptcy rate.

5 State bankruptcy laws encourage bankruptcy In theory, states with liberal protection for debtors would have lower bankruptcy rates because they would not need to file bankruptcy. States that allow you to keep your home, car, tools, and other possessions protect debtors from ever having to file bankruptcy. Why file if bankruptcy does not offer more protection than what you already have? The trouble with this is that again there is no correlation of bankruptcy between states with tough credit laws vs. those with liberal credit laws. One might think, too, that in creditor-friendly states like Utah that people would be afraid of filing bankruptcy for fear of losing everything. But that is not the case, either.

Personally, I think it is simply random distribution. Any random sample of a population will show 'clumping' in some geographical areas. This frustrates cancer researchers no end. You can have two groups of people living in identical conditions and one group will always have a higher cancer rate for no explainable reason at all. The same goes for coin tosses. You don't get an even spread of heads-tails-heads-tails-heads-tails. What you get is clumps of heads and clumps of tails. What I am saying is, there may be no rational explanation for the distribution of bankruptcy rates around the country.

[cjcampbell]

It also doesn't have the highly concentrated urban populations does it? Plus...there is that oil pipeline thing and all.

A smart fella can make a lot of money in Alaska, but not from oil.

Say you buy a trailer court -- not a nice one with flowers and stuff, but one of those ratty trailer courts where people put up plywood and tarpaper sheds by their trailers. Now, trailer park residents 'own' their trailers, meaning whoever lent them the money to buy their trailer is the real owner. The residents rent 'space' in the trailer park. It is very expensive to move a trailer and in this type of park it is more expensive to move a trailer than the trailer is worth!

So you buy up a bunch of ratty trailers, fix them up nice, and park them in your trailer park, and sell them to people with bad credit. You finance the trailers, because no bank will, right? Your new residents give you a down payment and they make monthly payments on the trailer and the space. If they default, you just boot them out and sell the trailer to the next guy. I have seen trailers sold six or seven times in the space of just a few years...

If they don't default, you still get the rent on the space from a very responsible tenant. He will probably eventually sell his trailer back to you when he buys a house. And the cycle starts again.

[Pahoran]

Any correlation with Mormons and bankruptcy would probably be slight in favor or against even with a larger sample size. I guess it boils down to Mormons looking, acting and living life just as everybody else does, with about the same statistics and averages as non-members.

I thought Mormons considered themselves the light upon the hill that cannot be hidden? Living within the averages isn't exactly shining brightly as an example to the world.

IOW, if you can't accuse us of being any worse than anyone else, you'll contrive an excuse to hang a double standard on us, and criticise us for not being noticeably better.

The all-purpose anti-Mormon fallback position.

Regards,

Pahoran

[juliann]

IOW, if you can't accuse us of being any worse than anyone else, you'll contrive an excuse to hang a double standard on us, and criticise us for not being noticeably better.

The all-purpose anti-Mormon fallback position.

Priceless. I think I will quote you.

[spinner]

Some additional thoughts on this article:

Margin of Error

A glaring weakness of this article that is apparent to anybody who's taken statistics is the fact that they never mention the margin of error in their studies. The authors approached 495 debtors, collecting a total of 281 useable surveys (p.614-15). That's a pretty small sample size and they end up slicing this data a lot of different directions. Never mentioning their margin of error in a statistical survey creates serious doubts about how reliable their conclusions really are. As the statistician quoted in the Deseret News article notes, the difference between the rate of Mormon and non-Mormon filers was statistically insignificant (i.e., within the survey's margin of error); nevertheless, the authors hammer home the idea that Mormons file at a lower rate than non-Mormons, by my cursory count, 10 times (p. 609, 617, 619, 620, 621, 623, 624, 626, 628, 633). Exploiting a statistic that falls within the survey's margin of error so frequently (and without ever mentioning as much) either indicates sloppiness, a failure to understand principles of statistics or bias.

Sampling

I find their explanations of how they determined that they were receiving a representative sample size less than convincing.

They note that under-response among Mormons would skew their statisctics and lessen the effect that the Mormon religion had on bankruptcy rates. Nevertheless, they they completely left out the St. George area (1 of Utah's 4 banktupcy districts) in compiling their statistics, as this area accounted for less than 5% of total state filings (FN 56). Nevertheless, 5% is a statistically significant number and the St. George area is presumably heavily Mormon. At no point did their statistics attempt to account for this in their calculations.

Additionally, they used the fact that there were similar response rates in SLC (the less Mormon area) and the Ogden and Provo areas as their proof that Mormons and non-Mormons responded at similar rates (p. 615). There are many reasons, however, that Mormons could have been under-responding while the overall response rates for these districts remained similar. For instance, I would venture that the SLC area has a high proportion of the number of individuals who were not able to complete the survey because of "insurmountable language barriers" (p. 614, FN 63). If this were the case, it would lower the response rate in the comparatively less heavily Mormon SLC area, skewing the response rate and meaning that non-Mormons who did understand English did in fact respond at a higher rate than Mormons.

Finally, they mention that they contacted 87% of debtors (a total of 452), collecting 281 useable surveys (p. 612-13). They do not explain whether this 13% non-contact rate was the same across regions or whether it was much higher in some areas. They only provide the response rates for people they did contact. Nevertheless, this 13% could have a very significant skewing effect if there higher non-response rate in Provo than SLC, it would mean Mormons were under-represented. This 13% black box could also significantly skew the results if it was unique from the portion that did respond (i.e., much higher or lower percent active Mormons).

Tithing

There are several holes in their explanations that tithing does not contribute to bankruptcy rates. For instance, in FN 97, they write "we assume that (Mormons) who did not respond to the tithing question tithhed in the same proportions as those who did." I think that this is a faulty assumption, as a Mormon who did tithe may be much more likely to respond to this question than one who did not, who may feel guilty about not having tithed.

Furthermore, they completely brush off the possibility that persons now in bankruptcy had paid tithes at a higher rate prior to facing financial difficulties and that their contributions decreased because of such difficulties (and therefore the corresponding conclusion that tithing may have contributed, in the long term, to the financial difficulties leading to bankruptcy). They only ask about tithes immediately preceding declaration of bankruptcy. See p. 624-25.

Family Size

They completely fudge the argument about large Mormon households not contributing to bankrutpcy. They note that families with children are much more likely to file for bankrutpcy, but then focus only on the fact that the gap between filers with children and without children is smaller in Utah than it is in other states (p. 626). This odd focus completely ignores the fact that having fewer households with children would still lower the overall bankruptcy rate in Utah, as there is still a large gap between percentage of filers with children compared to those without children.

Age

They brush away arguments that marrying, starting families and purchasing a home at comparatively young ages could lead to elevated bankruptcy rates by comparing average age of filers, which are only slightly lower in Utah. This seems to me to be a non-sequitur. The "early" factor could very well lead to higher rates of filing down the road because a person would have less insurance or savings while not affecting the average age of the filer, as the immediate causes of bankrutpcy (job or health problems) may typically come at a similar average age. In other words, the "early" factor could very well affect rates of filing while not significantly affecting average filers' ages.

Potential bias

The authors are both members and presumably did not want to create a study that reflected poorly on the church (otherwise they would be called antis ). I am NOT accusing them of deliberately skewing their survey or falsifying anything. They did, however, conduct all of the surveys themselves and there are many potential ways that they could have unconsciously biased the survey. It would have been far more reliable to have had this survey conducted by professional statisticians or even uninterested third parties. Additionally, the desire of certain respondents to make the church look good may have influenced their filling out the survey (this could cut both ways, of course, if there were a lot of antis filing for bankruptcy).

Overall Writing

The writing, despite these guys being recent Harvard law grads, is amatuerish. They simply cannot stop themselves from backsliding into church speak. I know that this is, to a degree, nit-picking, but it bugs me nonetheless as a former editor of a law journal. Examples: "The leaders of the Church emphasize teachings regarding members' responsibility to repay financial obligatrions and warn against debt" (p. 608). This is, quite frankly, the language of priesthood meeting not of an academic journal--there is way too much in here that is undefined to a lay reader.

They are inconsistent with their definitions, misspelling the the church's name and missing some very basic definitional inconsistencies (i.e., alternately calling the the church "The Church" and the "LDS Church". Another example is FN 87, which makes assumes with no corresponding support that "when Mormon filers indicated that they turned to a religious or charitable institution for help they were referring to the Church."

Additionally, these guys relied very heavily on their sponsoring professor, Elizabeth Warren, in their footnotes and presumably in their research. When I was an editor, I frequently rejected articles for publication for relying on a similarly narrow base of research.

Conclusion

The article is plagued with problems and while the conclusions may be pleasing to some, I think that a more in-depth examination of this study casts serious doubt on many of these conclusions. I would have much more faith in this article's conclusions if the authors were more willing to acknowledge the weaknesses in their research, if the research had been conducted and / or reviewed by professional statisticians rather than aspiring lawyers, and if the authors did not, in every case, seem so eager to announce that their somewhat tenuous findings conclusively exonerated the Mormon church. For a supposed statistical study (which should deal in probabilities) they seem overly keen to announce each of their findings as conclusive proof to prove that there is NO link between Utah's bankruptcy rate and the practices of Mormon church members.

[USU78]

So why kick Alaska out of your theory? Because it does not fit?

Alaska has the highest federal land ownership of any state, yet it does not have a high bankruptcy rate.

You are aware, are you not, that royalties from oil and mineral leases on state lands, along with taxes on oil and mineral products produced on federal land, are so significant that Alaska can actually subsidize its citizens with cash payments after payment for operation of state government?

Who goes bankrupt if the state pays you just for living?

No such luck in Utah.

[Analytics]

Here is some insight into the margin of error on this.

Assume that Mormons and non-Mormons in Utah have exactly the same propensity to file bankruptcy. Then of 295 bankruptcies, you would expect 295*.624 = 184 bankruptcies to be Mormon. The variance of this is 295 * (.624) * (1-.624) = 69.21, and the standard deviation is 8.31.

In other words, weâ??d expect 62.4% of the bankruptcies in the sample to be Mormon plus or minus 5.4%.

When they said thisâ?¦

Our data reveal that in Utah non-Mormons are 4.6% more likely than their

Mormon counterparts to find themselves in bankruptcy court.

What they should have said was this:

Our data reveal that in Utah non-Mormons and Mormons are statistically indistinguishable from each other. Itâ??s possible that Mormons or non-Mormons actually filed at slightly higher rates than the other group, but both groups are much higher than the national average.

[sixidahos]

I was in Salt Lake City for the first time about three weeks ago. I was really surprised at how many check cashing (pre-dated check loans, etc.) that there were in the city. At one point I joked that there were more check cashing stores in Salt Lake City then there are Starbucks locations in Seattle. This indicates to me that quite a few people are having economic problems. It doesn't tell me who's going in there; it could be LDS or Non- LDS.

Any thoughts on who's using these places?

[Scott Lloyd]

I was in Salt Lake City for the first time about three weeks ago. I was really surprised at how many check cashing (pre-dated check loans, etc.) that there were in the city. At one point I joked that there were more check cashing stores in Salt Lake City then there are Starbucks locations in Seattle. This indicates to me that quite a few people are having economic problems. It doesn't tell me who's going in there; it could be LDS or Non- LDS.

Any thoughts on who's using these places?

If you please, I desire to keep this thread focused on the topic of the now-discredited theory that Mormons and Mormonism in Utah are causing the state to lead the nation in bankruptcy filings.

You can start a thread of your own on the peripheral topic of payday loans in Utah, if you like.

[Scott Lloyd]

Here is some insight into the margin of error on this.

Assume that Mormons and non-Mormons in Utah have exactly the same propensity to file bankruptcy. Then of 295 bankruptcies, you would expect 295*.624 = 184 bankruptcies to be Mormon. The variance of this is 295 * (.624) * (1-.624) = 69.21, and the standard deviation is 8.31.

In other words, we’d expect 62.4% of the bankruptcies in the sample to be Mormon plus or minus 5.4%.

When they said this…

What they should have said was this:

Our data reveal that in Utah non-Mormons and Mormons are statistically indistinguishable from each other. It’s possible that Mormons or non-Mormons actually filed at slightly higher rates than the other group, but both groups are much higher than the national average.

I think it was fairly clear from the law review article and media coverage of the study that there is no significant difference between Mormons and non-Mormons in bankruptcy filings in Utah.

The important point is that Mormons are no more likely than anybody else in the state to file for bankruptcy.

This is significant because it contradicts the widespread but careless post hoc presumption that Mormons are driving up the state's bankruptcy rate because they (pick one or more here) pay tithing; send children on missions; (supposedly) have large families; marry younger; try to get by on one income. If that's the case, where are the numbers to prove it? One of the authors of the study, James Wright, told the Deseret Morning News that the percent of filers who were LDS would have to be much higher -- 70 to 80 percent -- for that to be true (see link in opening post).

And, as I pointed out earlier, if similar environmental, financial and social factors are impacting Mormons vs. non-Mormons, then, under the post hoc reasoning of the critics, the Mormons in Utah are actually doing very well, since they have their religious tenets to deal with on top of everything else.

The fact that you, a statistician, have ignored the important point and chosen instead to focus on a minor one is remarkable indeed.

Incidentally, for the uninitiated, the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy is illustrated by the transparently absurd statement: "The rooster causes the sun to come up because the dawn invariably follows the rooster's crowing."

The Latin means "after this, therefore because of this."