Per-capita income rankings among the 110 largest metropolitan areas in the United States — areas with populations of 500,000 or more — have changed little since 1980, according to a recent blog post from the US Department of Commerce. But some exceptions exist.

The post was the second in a series about regional economic trends and place-based efforts for the Commerce Department’s Regional Economic Research Initiative, which links place-based program data with local economic data in an effort to improve the design, implementation and evaluation of the programs.

“For the most part, high-income places 40 years ago remain high-income today, and low-income places 40 years ago are still relatively low-income,” wrote Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs Jed Kolko. “Economic opportunity tends to be concentrated in some places and not others, and most places with less economic opportunity for their residents remain so over time.”

Among the exceptions, however, are Austin, TX, and the Northwest Arkansas metropolitan area of Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers; both made a giant leap into the top 10 list of per-capita income metro areas. In the 1980 ranking, Austin was placed as a middle-income area, at 55; in 2021, it rose to the No. 9 slot. The Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers area was among the lowest-income metros in 1980, at 107; in 2021, the area rose to No. 10. Its Northwest Arkansas’ inflation-adjusted income almost tripled between 1980 and 2021, Kolko noted. 

Six areas were among the top 10 for income in both 1980 and 2021:

  • San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA;
  • Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT;
  • San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA;
  • Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA;
  • Washington, DC-Arlington-Alexandria, VA; and
  • Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO.

“Places with higher incomes in 1980 tended to have faster income growth between 1980 and 2021, contributing to widening geographic inequality and little change in the income ranking of places. Only a few metros stand out for dramatic income growth from a low starting point during these decades, and rapid employment or population growth did not necessarily lead to especially strong income growth,” Kolko said.

The correlation between employment growth and income growth from 1980 to 2021 was “small but statistically significant,” Kolko noted. One reason for the lack of growth, he said, is that high-paying jobs tend to cluster in the same metropolitan areas, particularly tech, finance and professional services. Therefore, according to the blog post, job creation didn’t necessarily lead to across-the-board growth in income. 

“Some Sunbelt metros experienced rapid job and population growth but with relatively slow per-capita income growth, like Las Vegas and Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario CA. Still, other places had slow job and population growth along with little income growth, such as Cleveland, Detroit, Rochester, NY, and other metros in the Great Lakes and Midwest region,” Kolko said.