Economic Mobility by State

If you want to get ahead, some states are better than others. That's the finding of Pew's Economic Mobility Project, which has for the first time measured economic mobility by state. To gauge economic mobility, the study examined the earnings growth of Americans born between 1943 and 1958 as they aged through their prime working years--from 35-to-39 to 45-to-49. Here are the states in which economic mobility is statistically different from the national average:

Economic mobility better than average: Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Utah.

Economic mobility worse than average: Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas.

Source: Pew Center on the States, Economic Mobility of the States