Poor children growing up in three out of four rural counties — especially in the Great Plains — are more likely to earn more than the national average by the age of 26 than their counterparts in cities, says a national study by Stanford economist Raj Chetty. Just 29 percent of kids in densely populated urban centers earn more than the national average as adults.
Chetty and his fellow researchers, who relied on millions of income tax returns over several decades to come to their findings, claim that kids in these rural areas benefit from the “neighborhood effect” — a combination of little racial segregation, small income disparities, good schools and a strong sense of civic life, says the Daily Yonder.
“Compared with cities and suburbs, it is much easier to move up into the middle class from rural Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska. Well-off and hard-up kids go to school together in small towns. They come of age in tight social networks that run through extended family, neighbors, church, school and fields. They feel pressure to work hard and succeed,” says the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
However, communities with more black and Native American residents showed less upward mobility — likely because of greater segregation and discrimination. Of the top 100 best counties for poor kids to grow up, 77 were in the Upper Great Plains and were mostly farming communities, says the Daily Yonder.