LogFAQs > #960510062

Lower family SES is associated with smaller hippocampal volume, higher internalizing
problems, and greater exposure to stressful life events. However, we show that these
relationships are magnified in states with high cost of living, but reduced in states with more
generous antipoverty programs. Anti-poverty programs reduce the associations of low SES with
brain structure by approximately 37% in states where cost of living is high. In states where
antipoverty programs were more generous, the associations of SES with hippocampal volume,
internalizing problems, and stressful life events in high cost of living states resembled that of low
cost of living states.

If I'm reading this right, it seems like a high cost-of-living is the more important part here, that it takes a fuckton of social support programs for a poor kid in NYC to be about the same as median-income kid in nowhere Wyoming.