| May 10, 2012, 5:36 pm

Colorado residents upwardly mobile Pew study reports

[media-credit name=”Pew Charitable Trusts” align=”aligncenter” width=”495″][/media-credit]

Colorado ranks average in overall income growth, but has a higher share of residents who are upwardly mobile.

The Pew Center for the States released a study today looking at income mobility across the country, and it shows many Colorado residents were able to climb the economic ladder, even if the state’s economy has generated only average gains in income.

Pew defines economic mobility in two ways. One is absolute mobility or the gains in average income that an economy provides. Think of it as the tide that lifts all ships. Colorado is just average on that measure, with a 19 percent gain in incomes over a 10-year period ending in 2007.

Relative mobility is how many people move up or down the floors inside that ship or economy. About 43 percent of Colorado residents in the Pew study met the definition of upward mobility, one of the highest rates of any state. Another 31 percent were downwardly mobile, not much different than the U.S. average.

Imagine a crowded ladder with 100 steps and some people jockeying for positions and others hanging on for dear life. Those able to climb 10 rungs or more up in a given period are the upwardly mobile. Those who climb or are forced down 10 or more rungs are the downwardly mobile by Pew’s definition.
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