Is It Good To Be Poor In Lower Providence?

A new study ranks Montgomery County 11th in the nation for income mobility amongst lower-earning families.

The Equality of Opportunity study analyzed what a childhood, or about 20 years spent in Montgomery County, would due to future income chances.

Poor children growing up in Montgomery County wound up making about $2,000 more - about 8 percent more -annually than a poor child growing up in an average county, according to the study.

Girls fared particularly well in the analysis, doing better in Montgomery County than in 86% of other counties around the country, and making $3,200 more annually than a child growing up in a poor county. Girls also fared better in Montgomery County than in anywhere else in the Philadelphia region.

The Equality of Opportunity study was run by Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren, and was a joint effort between Harvard University and the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The study aimed to uncover the effects of specific neighborhoods on future income mobility.

The Montgomery County statistics differed drastically from some other nearby communities.

“Where children grow up affects their outcomes in adulthood in proportion to the time they spend in the place,” Hendren and Chetty wrote in the study. “Neighborhood environments have important effects well after early childhood.”

Montgomery ranked ahead of nearly all counties in the Philadelphia area, falling behind only Bucks and Chester.

All of South Jersey, along with Delaware County and Philadelphia County, were either just barely above, or well below, the national average.

Researchers found five key factors in common in counties with strong upward mobility:

• Less concentrated poverty
• Less income inequality
• Better schools
• Larger share of two-parent families
• Lower crime rates.

Montgomery County children from average income families did better than 67 percent of the nation, while rich kids did better than 55 percent.

Children from families in the upper one percent of income earners, meanwhile, only fared better than 42 percent.

The same researchers are behind similar community-based nationwide studies analyzing the likelihood of marriage based on location.

For more information on the study and other counties in Pennsylvania, click here.

Photo courtesy of the Equality of Opportunity Study.