Credit Markets, Social Networks, and America's Divided Geography: The Anatomy of Economic Opportunity and Political Polarization

Abstract

This paper provides a comprehensive descriptive portrait of how credit access and cross-class social networks cluster geographically across U.S. counties, and how these patterns correlate with political polarization. Combining county-level credit data from Opportunity Insights with social capital measures derived from 21 billion Facebook friendships and voting data from 2016–2024, we document three key findings. First, credit scores and economic connectedness are extraordinarily correlated ($r = 0.82$), revealing that places where people have better access to credit are also places where social networks bridge class boundaries. Second, after controlling for income, education, and demographics, counties with higher credit scores are less Republican by 5.5 percentage points per standard deviation—a reversal of the raw correlation—while economic connectedness shows a modest negative association with Republican voting. Third, the shift toward Republicans from 2016–2024 was concentrated in counties with lower college attainment and higher delinquency rates. Our typology of American counties reveals a complex mosaic: "Affluent Blue" counties with high credit and high social capital cluster on the coasts, while "Struggling Red" counties dominate the interior. These patterns suggest that the same forces shaping economic opportunity—access to credit and bridging social capital—may also be shaping America's political divide.