What role can entrepreneurship and tech jobs play in helping more people earn more than their parents? And is the answer different by the region?
A team of Harvard and Berkeley economists led by Raj Chetty just released new research on the “geography of intergenerational mobility in the United States.” Using anonymized tax records of more than 40 million parents and children, they tracked where in the U.S. the American Dream—earning more than your parents—has the best chance of coming true.
The results are striking. Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh, Boston and Silicon Valley (San Jose and San Francisco) topped the list of large regions with the highest rates of upward mobility. At the other end: Detroit, Indianapolis, Atlanta and Charlotte. New York City and Washington D.C. both cracked the top 15. Philadelphia landed right in the middle of the pack—above Austin, Phoenix and Chicago. Baltimore placed in the bottom third, but still above Nashville.
So what is “upward mobility” in this context? Chetty’s team measured the odds that a child born to parents in the bottom fifth of income makes it to the top fifth. In Charlotte, the chance was just 4.4%. In San Jose, it was nearly 13%. That’s the difference between being one of the least mobile developed countries in the world and matching Denmark, often cited as the most mobile.
The researchers found five community factors most associated with higher mobility: less residential segregation (people with different incomes lived near each other), lower inequality (less income stratification), better schools (that let kids from different backgrounds access them), stronger social capital (more friendships across incomes) and greater family stability (kids do better with consistent households).
Those findings suggest that local policy and community choices matter—a lot—for shaping opportunity. That’s what got me thinking about what kinds of jobs a place has, and who has access to them. I also think about Technical.ly’s work: Can information, programs and events bring people together from different backgrounds?
Penn’s Fels Institute summarized the research like this: improving mobility isn’t just about fairness; it also boosts overall economic growth.
For cities like Philadelphia and Baltimore, which want to grow innovation economies, the question is how entrepreneurship, tech jobs and civic investment can work together to create environments where talent has a real shot at rising.