Income Migration and the Spatial Redistribution of Poverty and Income in the Mountain West Region during the 1990s

摘要

The purpose of this research is to understand how rapid population growth in the Mountain West region in the U.S. during the 1990s has affected the spatial distribution of income and poverty. Population growth in the Mountain West during the 1990s was principally through the mechanism of internal and international migration. In previous research we found that much of this growth, and the income growth that went along with it, was highly concentrated in only a few, high-amenity counties. In this paper we use IRS/Census Bureau data on income migration to identify migration of different income groups and how their migration during the 1990s has affected spatial patterns of income and poverty. Counties with the lowest levels of poverty had the largest increase in poverty during the decade. However, somewhat paradoxically, these counties also experienced the largest increase in income due to outmigration of lower income people. In general, migration patterns between 1995 and 2000 within and from beyond the Mountain West region tended to reinforce existing spatial patterns of poverty with higher income people moving to lower poverty counties and lower income people moving to higher poverty counties.