In this weekend’s New York Times Magazine, David Leonhardt asked “Is Your Religion Your Financial Destiny?” The conclusion was that of all major religions (including secularism), Reform Judaism is the most affluent, with just under 75% of all households under that banner making an annual income of $75K. Ranking behind Reform Jews are Hindus and Conservative Jews. The lowest on the chart would be Pentecostals, who hit just around the 15% mark. Orthodox Jews are nowhere to be found on the list – possibly due to the fact that there is no one single unifying organization or movement that connects Orthodox Jews financially. Strangely enough, predominately Orthodox neighborhoods have been in the news as of late; one for being the poorest place in all of America, while the Midwood section of Brooklyn has been identified as the safest nabe in all of New York. Having the safest neighborhood in one of the biggest cities in the world isn’t easy to pull off if your community has no money.
Is this an oversight on the part of the NYT, or is it a result of the many different sects and organizations that dot the Orthodox map?
Update: The New York Times confirmed that they didn’t include orthodox Jews in the study because the sample size wasn’t large enough.