According to a study by Bizjournals, a company affiliated with the Pittsburgh Business Times, Pittsburgh is among the strongest in the country when it comes to long-term income growth. Pittsburgh ranked 19th out of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas in income growth over the past 25 years. Birmingham, Alabama was number 1, Philadelphia was 17th and Cleveland was number 89.
The study based on different time spans between 1980 and 2005 used data provided by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis regarding per-capita income, or the average amount of money received by each resident in a given area in a given year. This included salaries, interest payments, dividends, rental income and government checks.
Jim Futrell, vice-president of market research and analysis for the Allegheny Conference on Community Development attributes the income growth to a shift in hiring employees in higher paying industries, i.e. education, health care, finance, and management, pointing to PNC, the University of Pittsburgh and Mellon Financial as dominant business anchors with solid growth over the last 25 years.