Oil!
“Here, if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw. There it is, that’s a straw, you see? You watching? And my straw reaches acroooooooss the room, and starts to drink your milkshake… I… drink… your… milkshake! I drink it up!”
-There Will Be Blood
The top oil producing areas in this country are states like Texas, Alaska, and California (home of Daniel Plainview). On PolicyMap, you can look up the top areas of employment in the oil and gas extraction industry:
However, when it comes to home heating, that oil goes through a straw acroooooooss the country, and it’s the Northeast that drinks the oil:
So to your list of Northeastern stereotypes, you can add something new: Northeasterners use oil or kerosene to heat their homes more than anywhere else in the country.
Here are the top ten oil producers (by employment) and consumers (by household) in the United States:
State/Jobs in Oil and Gas Extraction Industry in 2009 (County Business Patterns) | State/Households That Use Oil or Kerosene in 2005-2009 (ACS) | |
Texas 41,361 | New York 2,317,069 | |
Oklahoma 14,493 | Pennsylvania 1,089,944 | |
Louisiana 8,466 | Massachusetts 877,154 | |
Colorado 6,615 | Connecticut 657,247 | |
California 6,004 | New Jersey 464,008 | |
New Mexico 3,551 | Maine 410,296 | |
Wyoming 3,543 | New Hampshire 269,329 | |
West Virginia 3,067 | Maryland 266,013 | |
Pennsylvania 2,987 | Virginia 264,014 | |
Kansas 2,866 | North Carolina 250,325 |