By lumping everyone in a geographical area together and taking averages there might be some unwarranted conclusions being drawn. In this Pew study you can see that those who report “nothing in particular” as their religion are not particularly well off. They are about as wealthy as Catholics and Southern Baptists but are far out-ranked by many religious groups. Even atheists and agnostics are not as wealthy as four religious groups.

[pewresearch.org]

“Does theism depress life?” What a loaded question! Religious people in general are not striving for great wealth but for a good life based on spiritual rewards. Just how wealthy do you want people to be? Surely there must be some balance. If theism depressed life theism would have been eliminated from the human experience ages ago. Based on empirical evidence it appears that theism enhances life.

Using my county as an example, from my perspective it appears that those who are industrious and who have an ample amount of wealth are those who belong to a church. Those who are poor and rely on government programs are generally not interested in religion. Because this is an agricultural area, average income is somewhat below the national average—at the same time, since there’s less social and cultural diversity people tend to be conservative, sticking with their traditional religion. You could look at the statistics and draw the conclusion that religion causes poverty or that poverty causes religion, but that conclusion is totally unjustified IMO.