Metro Atlanta's stubborn economic mobility issues persist, a new study says
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Metro Atlanta kids born into low-income households are still finding broken ladders to climb out of poverty, according to a new report from the team that sounded the alarm on economic mobility a decade ago.
Why it matters: Metro Atlanta is one of the country's economic powerhouses, but the prosperity has yet to reach children born into poverty.
How it works: The paper published last month by Harvard economist Raj Chetty uses anonymized federal census data and tax returns to track people born into low-income families in 1978 and 1992, and examines their income in adulthood at 27 years old.
By the numbers: Household incomes between the 1978 and 1992 groups decreased 5.2% in Atlanta, from $27,700 to $26,200, matching the national average.
- In other words, a native Atlantan who's about 30 years old today is more likely to be in a worse financial position than an Atlantan who was about 30 in 2014.
Reality check: Atlanta ranks 50 out of the 50 most populous metros for upward mobility for low-income children born in 1992, according to researchers.
Between the lines: The paper notes that Charlotte, which in Chetty's 2014 study saw levels of mobility for children born in 1978 even worse than Atlanta's, saw the third highest percentage change between the two age groups.
- "In contrast, mobility remained low in Atlanta for both groups," the report says.
In the weeds: In 2017, Charlotte civic leaders responded to that 2014 ranking by publishing a 92-page report looking at root causes, including early child care and education, child and family stability, segregation and more. Public-private partnerships raised funding for affordable housing, universal pre-K and college readiness programs.
Yes, but: Understanding how Charlotte was able to show such strong economic mobility gains for young people is a complex task, Steve Harrison of WFAE, Charlotte's NPR affiliate, writes.
The big picture: Janelle Williams, the co-founder and CEO of the Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative, tells Axios that the corporate and philanthropic communities should invest in organizations and efforts that are working to remove structural barriers.
- In addition, metro Atlanta's jigsaw puzzle of counties and cities can trip up efforts to address sprawling complex problems like the lack of economic mobility.
- Policies like baby bonds, basic-income programs, community-benefit agreements and affordable housing can build a solid foundation for young people and help improve economic mobility, Williams and Alex Camardelle, AWBI's vice president of policy and research, say.
Go deeper: Read the full report and the non-technical summary.