Last month, the New York Times published an article titled “An Atlas of Upward Mobility Shows Paths Out of Poverty.” The article details a recent study that finds that some children living in poverty have a better chance of escaping poverty as adults than their counterparts living in similar situations in other cities with smaller chances of upward mobility. Essentially, growing up in poverty does not mean a child will stay poor; much depends on where they grow up. The article lists our own hometown, Austin, as one of the cities where low-income children face the worst odds–meaning they have a small chance of living above the poverty line, even as adults. In fact, a child who grows up in Travis County will earn 8% less as an adult than if they had grown up in a city with an average chance of upward mobility. Other cities on this list are Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Orlando, West Palm Beach, Tampa, the Bronx and low-income parts of Manhattan. It also highlights Baltimore as the city with the worst chance of upward mobility. The study, titled “The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility,” was authored by two Harvard professors. They analyzed more than five million children who moved over a 16 year timeframe. The study found that the younger a child moves from a neighborhood with bad upward mobility to a neighborhood with better upward mobility, the higher the chance they will rise out of poverty as an adult. Additionally, the […]
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