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Economic prospects have improved in recent years for Black Americans born poor, according to new research from Opportunity Insights. At the same time, earnings have fallen for white Americans from low-income families.

The analysis, drawn from 40 years of tax and Census records, finds a dramatic narrowing of the economic divide between the poorest Black and white Americans. But it also reveals a widening gap between low- and high-income white people, driven by shifts in the geography of employment.

"This is the first big data study to look at recent changes in economic opportunity within the same place over time," said study co-author Benny Goldman, M.A., Ph.D., a research affiliate with Opportunity Insights. "And what we see are shrinking race gaps and growing class gaps."

The research follows what Goldman called "a long history of folks studying intergenerational mobility." That includes Opportunity Insights co-founder and director Raj Chetty, the William A. Ackman Professor of Public Economics and one of the study's five co-authors. For more than a decade, Chetty has built an influential body of work demonstrating how access to the American Dream varies by region, race, and history.

Social scientists have found the patterns he uncovered to be persistent. For example, a Swedish demographer compared findings from a 2014 study co-authored by Chetty on upward mobility across generations in the U.S. to the prevalence of slavery from the 1860 census. Counties with high rates of bondage at the outbreak of the Civil War showed less mobility for residents born more than 100 years later.

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