Snohomish, King counties top list of best places for poor kids

If you’re a kid growing up poor in the United States and want a better chance at succeeding, try moving to Snohomish County. Or even King County.

That’s the conclusion of The Equality of Opportunity Project, which has analyzed the largest counties throughout the nation, and in turn compiled the best neighborhoods to live in for low-income youth, The New York Times reported.

The study considers how well a child from a poor family would fair in relative communities, and how much money they would make by the time they were 26 years old, compared to their low-income counterparts in other counties.

Among the nation’s top 10 largest counties for a poor child’s prospects is Snohomish County, which came in at No. 2. King County came in at No. 7.

The study says a poor Snohomish County child will grow up to make 14 percent more than the average poor child in America. A King County child will make 11 percent more.

Of all the counties nationwide, King County is ranked 2,013th out of 2,478 counties &#8212 or better than about 81 percent of all counties. King County is noted as better for poor children than for rich children, according to The New York Times.

That’s also the case for Snohomish County, which ranks 2,180th out of 2,478 counties &#8212 or better than 88 percent of counties.

The study concludes a child’s potential is affected by where they grow up.

The results caught the attention of KIRO Radio’s Tom Tangney and John Curley, who debated whether or not placing low-income people in wealthier neighborhoods is a good idea, or even fair.

“Twenty years ago, in the wake of the LA riots, they established this anti-poverty experiment called ‘Moving to Opportunity,'” Tangney said. “The idea was that they gave vouchers to help poor families move to better neighborhoods and they would study them for the next 10 to 15 years. It was really disappointing. The end result seemed that it had no effect on these families.”

“It shows you how intractable poverty is,” Tangney said.

The initial conclusion was a bit off, Tangney continued, noting the studies began looking at the younger generations that went into a new environment.

“What they didn’t do was look at the younger people enough, and now the younger people have had a chance to grow up and it has had a better effect,” Tangney said.

Tangney said that maybe it would be better to put affordable housing in better neighborhoods, instead of providing tax credits to developers to build in low-income neighborhoods. But Curley was quick with skepticism about the notion, and said that people in nice neighborhoods don’t want the new neighbors.

“Mr. and Mrs. Smith move out, they save their money, they work hard, they have two or three jobs, they sacrifice, they move out of a crappy neighborhood and they move into a good neighborhood so they can give their kids some advantages,” Curley said. “And then the city or state comes along and says ‘we’re gonna take people that are in a crappy neighborhood, and we are not going to ask them to do anything, we are just going to transplant them out of that neighborhood and make them your neighbor.’ How do you think Mr. and Mrs. Smith feel about that?”