In Our View: Location Counts

Clark County is, we like to think, a pretty special place to raise children.

The landscape is unparalleled; the people are exceptional; the sense of community is strong. But the question of whether Clark County provides future economic benefits for children who grow up here is one that has been subject to guesswork — until now. “Clark County is about average for income mobility for children in poor families. It is better than about 52 percent of counties,” comes the conclusion from a new study by Harvard University economists Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren. “It ranks better for poor children than it does for rich children.”

In other words, Clark County is middling in how it facilitates the traditional notion of the American Dream, the one that says everybody has an opportunity to improve their economic circumstances if they are smart and apply themselves. To arrive at that conclusion, Chetty and Hendren studied the earnings records of millions of families that moved with children. This allowed them to see, for example, whether those who moved to Clark County as children eventually fared better than those who moved to, say, Skamania County. Or King County. Or Avoyelles Parish in Louisiana.

For poor children — defined as those living in the bottom quartile of income — growing up in Clark County would add an average of about $840 to their average annual income at the age of 26. For children in other income classes, however, growing up in Clark County would result in reduced adult income when compared with the average.

As often goes with academic studies, all of this can be complicated and can be rendered meaningless without some causes assigned to the disparities. Chetty and Hendren identified five primary factors with improving income mobility for children: Less segregation by income and race among neighborhoods; lower levels of income inequality; good schools; lower rates of violent crime; and a larger percentage of two-parent households.

Each of these could intuitively be identified as an important aspect of income mobility. And yet their importance has been highlighted by recent events in Baltimore. Maryland’s most populous area, where protests have brought scrutiny to vast income disparities, ranks last among the nation’s largest 100 counties in terms of income mobility.

The upshot of the study is that location matters. Poor children who left poor neighborhoods were found to be much more likely to attend college and enjoy increased lifetime earnings, and they were much less likely to become teen parents. As economist Justin Wolfer wrote, the study is, “the most powerful demonstration yet that neighborhoods — their schools, community, neighbors, local amenities, economic opportunities and social norms — are a critical factor shaping your children’s outcomes.” Chetty, one of the study’s authors, said: “The data show we can do something about upward mobility. Every extra year of childhood spent in a better neighborhood seems to matter.”

As the nation continues to debate income inequality, the notion of upward mobility should remain at the forefront of the discussion. The development of a permanent underclass hampers growth and prosperity for all economic classes; the diminishment of the American Dream serves as an affront to this nation’s ideals.

In this regard, Clark County remains a wonderful place to raise children. But the data show there is plenty of room for improvement.