Find out how well your child will fare financially at age 26, based on where you live
There are a lot of factors to consider when deciding where to raise your children, assuming you have a choice. According to new research from Harvard economists Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren, your location has a sizable, measurable impact on how much your child will earn as an adult — and if they're right, that's great news for children in the western suburbs of Chicago and northern suburbs of Seattle, but bad news for kids in Baltimore and Charlotte, North Carolina.
Chetty and Hendren lay out their methodology, data, and rankings at their Equality of Opportunity site, but The New York Times has compiled it into a very handy interactive map. If you visit the story, and don't use a private-browsing page, The Times will take you directly to your county and show you an article based on where you live (you can change location by clicking on a map or searching for a different city.) You can control for income bracket and gender.
Because of the criteria they used, the upper middle part of the country, from Utah to Minnesota, looks pretty good, while the South (minus Texas and Oklahoma) looks pretty bad:
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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