Friendships across income lines, and how far poor children climb

Some places mix rich and poor in their friendships. Others keep them apart. In US counties where people on lower incomes have more friends who are better off, children who grew up poor end up higher on the income ladder as adults. The link is one of the strongest on the site, and it survives the obvious explanations.

The two measures

Economic connectednesscounts how many of a lower-income person’s friends are higher-income, compared with an even mix. 1 means their friends match the local mix of rich and poor; below 1 means friendships are more split by income. It comes from Facebook friendships in 2022, published by Opportunity Insights.

The other measure, from the Opportunity Atlas, is where children raised poor here ended up. It takes children whose parents were poorer than about three in four families, and ranks their income at age 35 against everyone in the country, from 0 (poorest) to 1 (richest).

The pattern

Each dot is a county. Across 3,011 counties the link is +0.72.

The chart leaves off the 110 most extreme counties so the rest can be seen. Every figure on this page uses all of them.

Every figure here is r: how closely two measures rise and fall together, from −1 (one goes up as the other goes down) to +1 (they rise together). 0 means no link.

The obvious explanations

Richer, more educated places might simply have both. Comparing counties alike in density, income and education, the link is +0.63. Comparing counties only within their own state: +0.50. Poverty and single-parent homes might sit behind both, but allowing for them leaves +0.40. Allowing as well for the racial make-up of the county leaves +0.38, across the 2,205 counties with all of these figures.

Giving bigger counties more weight gives +0.40. Inside each of the 40 states with at least 20 counties, the link runs the same way in 40, with a middle value of +0.48.

A timing problem worth knowing

The children in the Opportunity Atlas were born from 1978 to 1983 and grew up long before Facebook. The friendships are from 2022. So this does not show that those children had friends across income lines. It shows that the places where poor children did well are, today, places where friendships cross income lines. Places tend to change slowly, so today’s friendships may echo older patterns. Even so, it is a comparison of places, not a record of anyone’s childhood.

What it might mean

Researchers who built these measures have suggested that friends across income lines can share information, contacts and expectations. That is one reading. Another is that places with mixed schools, mixed neighbourhoods and shared institutions simply have both: mixed friendships and better chances for poor children. The data here shows only that the two go together.

What this cannot tell you

• It describes counties, not people. It does not show that a child with richer friends earns more.
• Friendships are measured on Facebook, which not everyone uses in the same way.
• A link is not proof that one thing changes the other.

See the full figures for economic connectedness vs where poor children end up.

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• US Murder (Homicide) Rate: What Drives It?
• Where the rich move

These articles describe places, not people, and show links, not causes. Every article on PlaceStats.