Brain Drain in the Rust Belt

In May 2020, I analyzed migration patterns in and out of the industrial Midwest, also known as the Rust Belt. Utilizing data from the American Community Survey and the Current Population Survey, I found that the region is suffering from a serious brain drain, as the region’s stock of educated and wealthy people is being depleted. I hypothesized that a potential reason for the migration is a stagnation of wage growth, as real wages have remained essentially flat in the area since 2000. Additionally, I showed the adverse effects of these migrations on state budgets, estimating this effect to be on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

For the full text of the paper, click here.