US Counties With the Highest Mobility Scores

1,987 US counties ranked by mobility score, from highest to lowest. First are Stark County, ND (2.32), O'Brien County, IA (1.81) and Brown County, MN (1.72). The middle one of the 1,987 has -0.116.

What this measures

What happened to children raised poor in this county: their income rank as adults, and their chance of being locked up (flipped). Both describe children born around 1980. So this tells you about the county of forty years ago as much as the county today. Source: .

A standard deviation is a typical gap between places.

For most measures, a national ranking mostly sorts places by income and by how urban they are. Each county’s own page compares it with the 50 counties most like it instead, which is often the fairer view.

The 100 highest counties

More on mobility score

• US Counties With the Lowest Mobility Scores
• Mobility score by US county: map by year and what it goes with

A ranking describes places, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All US rankings.