Research Report Boosting Upward Mobility: A Planning Guide for Local Action
Martha Fedorowicz, Tina Chelidze, Kelly Walsh
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Across the US, local leaders are grappling with the challenge of boosting upward mobility and narrowing racial and ethnic inequities in their communities. The Boosting Upward Mobility: Planning Guide for Local Action builds on a foundation of data and evidence to help local governments better understand impediments to upward mobility, bring people out of poverty, and create more equitable results in their communities. The guide presents a comprehensive planning process that takes the user from start to finish to assess their readiness for action, build a cross-sector team, gather and analyze data, conduct community and stakeholder engagement, and identify needed systems changes to create a mobility action plan. Informed by best practices drawn from communities that have participated in our Upward Mobility cohort and from research on systems change and evidence-based decisionmaking, this guide presents real-world examples, worksheets, talking points, and checklists to help leaders track their advancement along the planning process.

This report was corrected on December 15, 2022. On pages 3 and 4, we moved some text in each step to appear with its proper step (i.e., some text that previously appeared with Step 1 actually applied to Step 2, some text in Step 2 actually applied to Step 3, and so forth). We also corrected the description of figure 16, on page 123, to include the correct colors.
Research and Evidence Research to Action Tax and Income Supports Equity and Community Impact Upward Mobility
Expertise Upward Mobility and Inequality Social Safety Net Wealth and Financial Well-Being
Tags Poverty Mobility Inequality and mobility Racial inequities in economic mobility Racial and ethnic disparities
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