Lifehacker calls attention to this two-year-old chart by Amanda Cox and Shan Carter of the New York Times graphics department, illustrating relative income mobility in various U.S. cities, as documented by Harvard University’s Equality of Opportunity Project.

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The chart compels one’s eyes to look at the City of Atlanta, which the data shows to have among the lowest levels of economic mobility in the country. According to the statistics, just 4 percent of children raised in the bottom-income quintile in Atlanta will end up in the city’s top quintile, and just 14 percent of those raised in the middle quintile will end up in the top quintile, both dead last among the cities chosen for graphic representation here.

But if one slides over to the third column, you see an interesting footnote. Atlanta also ranks among the cities where those raised in the top quintile are least likely to end up on top. Indeed, just 30 percent of those raised in Atlanta’s top quintile will stay there, which by definition means that 70 percent will not.

There are, of course, two quintiles not represented here (the second highest and the second lowest), so presumably the answer to the question “who ends up rich in Atlanta?” can be found there. Or, another way to frame it is that there is income mobility in Atlanta; it’s just mostly downward.

 

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