Economic mobility rates in the United States have stagnated. Today, only half of all children in the US grow up to earn more than their parents.

Many people view mobility from poverty as a matter of individual ability and hard work. In reality, long-standing structural barriers block opportunities to achieve greater economic success, power, autonomy, dignity, and belonging for most people experiencing poverty.

Some local leaders across the country have committed to dismantling barriers to and building systems that support upward mobility and advance equity. But how can they know whether their efforts are working, and what lessons can they apply from other communities to springboard to greater progress?

At a recent Urban Institute event, national, regional, and local leaders—all in various stages of adopting Urban’s Upward Mobility Framework—came together to discuss their ongoing efforts to measure, target, and improve community-level support of upward mobility from poverty. An initiative of the Urban Institute, the Upward Mobility Framework project seeks to improve economic mobility and reduce racial inequities for people and communities.

Event panelists included leaders from national and regional organizations adopting the framework for their upward mobility work, as well as representatives from three of eight localities that were part of the Upward Mobility Cohort. Over 18 months in 2021 and 2022, cohort member cities and counties partnered with Urban and local community members and organizations to use their mobility metrics and other data to understand the conditions that enable or prevent mobility and equity in their communities, identify current and potential solutions, and share best practices and address roadblocks with peer counties and cities.

Here are three lessons from our conversation that local leaders seeking to increase equity and upward mobility could adopt:

1. Foster residents’ sense of power and belonging. Urban’s Upward Mobility Framework is based on evidence that mobility from poverty requires more than economic success—it also requires power and autonomy and a sense of belonging in one’s community.
   
   This could mean having local organizations create new efforts to welcome and empower residents participating in local programs. For example, panelist Erica Greeley, who is the vice president of economic mobility at Feeding America, described how charitable food programs could provide “environments for people to choose their food instead of providing locally prepared boxes when possible, or [provide] food that is culturally provided to honor people’s heritage and foster their sense of belonging.”
   
   Leaders with the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative described recognizing a gap in their approach to serving residents and taking steps to better engage them. “Moving out of poverty—and staying out of poverty,” said executive director Aqua Y. Porter, “means that people need to be able to make their own decisions about their life and to be able to participate in their community’s decisionmaking.”
2. Engage with residents to ensure programs meet their needs. The Upward Mobility Framework provides resources to help local leaders address systemic inequities. The City of Philadelphia is launching a new zero-fare pilot program that would provide free transit access to 25,000 residents with low incomes. City leaders used community engagement strategies in the city’s Mobility Action Plan so decisions could be based on residents’ needs, leveraging city data to plan and develop the program and to autoenroll residents. They designed evaluation to understand how residents’ lives would change and how outcomes would measure against the city’s goals of achieving upward mobility for people and communities.
   
   For the East Bay Economic Development Alliance, and the other local governments and organizations that participated in the Upward Mobility Cohort, a critical first step in developing its Mobility Action Plan was taking inventory of programs and organizations already working on mobility and equity. From there, the organization worked to understand those programs’ strengths and to bring their leaders together to honor and leverage their existing work and contributions.
3. Unite stakeholders under shared goals. Communities, nonprofits, external investors, and local government agencies want different things out of local policies and programs, but having a common language and goal of increasing upward mobility and racial equity brings people together. For example, Feeding America collaborates with 60,000 agencies around the country to deliver food to people who need it and works across sectors to end hunger in the long term. According to Greeley, “upward mobility is a rallying cry” as Feeding America partners with other organizations for more holistic and transformational impact.
   
   As many cities nationwide face a revenue crunch after a decline in federal pandemic relief funds, Washington, DC, is leveraging the Upward Mobility Framework to bring together local agencies and external investors to focus even more on creating upward mobility. The District’s Comeback Plan, which was informed by the objectives in its Mobility Action Plan, sets a goal to increase economic prosperity by lifting Black residents’ median household incomes by $25,000.

These strategies for embedding equity and mobility into local leaders’ work can help ensure all people and communities have the chance to thrive. In the next phase of our work, Urban will help even more local governments, nonprofit organizations, and their partners achieve this goal.