In a new white paper, CRER director Howard Wall looks at trends in the official poverty rate in the Chattanooga metro area. The paper looks at the extent to which the recent jobs boom in the Chattanooga metro area has translated into a corresponding reduction in poverty. Following the national trend, Chattanooga’s official poverty rate…
3/20/2025: What Do Chattanoogans Do For a Living?
A new white paper from the CRER describes the Chattanooga metro area economy in terms of the occupations of its residents. Looking at employment from the perspective of occupations rather than industries provides a better picture of the skills, training, and job types that underlie the economy. The largest occupation groups are fairly general in…
1/22/2025: Wages in Chattanooga: Measurement, Trends, and Composition
This paper analyzes wage trends in the Chattanooga metro area between 2001 and 2023. Throughout this period, wages in the area were below those for the country as a whole. The first half of the period, which had two recessions, saw Chattanooga’s real median wage fall while the country’s rose. During the second half, however,…
11/7/2024: The Geography and Demographics of the Chattanooga Jobs Boom
Previous CRER research described how employment growth in the Chattanooga metro area from 2014 to 2022 was spread across demographic groups. This paper extends that research by comparing the effects across parts of the metro area and across demographic groups within each part. For most categories, the changes in the city of Chattanooga differ from…
7/25/2024: Origins and Destinations of Chattanooga’s Young Adult Migrants
This paper uses a unique dataset on the migration of young adults between commuting zones to analyze the most common origins and destinations of Chattanooga’s young adult migrants. Many more young adults moved into Chattanooga than moved out of it, but Chattanooga’s net in-migration rate was much lower than those for large areas such as…