The image is from a Washington Post article which took the data from an interesting research paper titled Who Pays For Your Rewards? Redistribution in the Credit Card Market.
The research paper is a good read. (A free PDF of the whole paper is available at the link.) It examines how the use of rewards credit cards results in a massive wealth transfer from low-credit-score customers to high-credit-score customers:
We estimate an aggregate annual redistribution of $15 billion from less to more educated, poorer to richer, and high to low minority areas, widening existing disparities.
The Washington Post article attempts to frame the clear north-south split as a result of healthcare issues in This map looks too similar to maps of poverty and education, and we know health correlates strongly with both of those issues.
Thanks for your insights! I am not aware of people having monochrome vision though, is that a thing? I use a single-color scale when that is appropriate. But use blue and red often for positive and negative values respectively. No purple. Just shades of blue and shades of red.
It’s very rare.