Data on x = poverty rate (%) and y = high school dropout rate (%) for the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia were used to construct the following scatterplot (Chronicle of Higher Education, August 31, 2001):

Write a few sentences commenting on this scatterplot. Would you describe the relationship between poverty rate and dropout rate as positive (y tends to increase as x increases), negative (y tends to decrease as x increases), or as having no discernible relationship between x and y?

Dropout rate 15 10 10 15 20 Poverty rate