Do you wish you were part of the 1 percent? You might want to consider moving to the Northeast.
A recent report, by the Economic Mobility Project at the Pew Center on the States, finds that the Northeast region provides the greatest opportunity for economic mobility and getting ahead.
The states that provide the most opportunity for economic mobility are Maryland, New Jersey and New York.
The region the proved the least economically mobile was the South, with the states Louisiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina pulling in last.
The study looks at Americans’ ability to move up and down the ladder of social mobility, focusing on three factors: “absolute mobility — how much states’ residents earned over time; relative upward mobility; and relative downward mobility,” reports the Los Angeles Times.
The research is based on the baby boomer generation, those born between 1943 and 1958, with the latest data coming from 2007. The relative mobility comparisons measured how earnings changed with their peers.
The Los Angeles Times notes that, “To be sure, there are individuals everywhere who are better or worse off than their peers,” but that in Maryland, New Jersey and New York, individuals were more able to climb the ladder, and least likely to fall, while in the Southern states, individuals were more likely to remain economically stuck.
“This is yet another indicator that leaders and policymakers have at their disposal to understand how their state measures up,” Pew research manager Diana Elliot told Bloomberg.