I'm dubious. There are a couple other factors: 1. Coastal cities have high costs of living; the top-right of the graph is dominated by coastal states with big

I'm dubious. There are a couple other factors: 1. Coastal cities have high costs of living; the top-right of the graph is dominated by coastal states with big cities; the bottom-left is dominated by landlocked, low cost-of-living places. 2. Wouldn't immigrants go places with high hourly wages? If you move in with your folks in New York or SF, why would you go to North Dakota? It sounds like the cause and effect relationship goes both ways: immigrants move to high-wage places, and the presence of all those ambitious, extra-hard-working folks causes economic growth and higher wages. But it's conceivable that one of those relationships could reduce wages, instead; one could easily read this as a graph demonstrating that every time you get high wages, you have this almost Malthusian influx of immigrants. Immigration has definitely raised my standard of living, though; the company I work for was founded by an immigrant.