The Greater Raleigh Chamber is the Triangle’s largest business membership organization, comprised of over 1,800 member firms. The Chamber’s mission is to build a thriving regional economy, enhance the community’s quality of life, and strengthen member businesses. To achieve these goals, the Chamber recognizes the necessity of a strong and diverse business community and workforce, ensuring the benefits of growth are shared across the region.

The Chamber has participated in several Economic Mobility initiatives to realize this vision. Notably, the Chamber houses Tapestry, a coalition of companies throughout the Research Triangle region that are addressing evolving demographic changes in our region. Tapestry believes that pursuing Economic Mobility efforts holds significant economic value by unlocking the full potential of the region’s workforce, fostering innovation, and boosting productivity. To guide their economic mobility efforts, the Greater Raleigh Chamber hired Economic Leadership LLC, a research and consulting firm based in North Carolina, to develop an Economic Mobility Index. This index compares the Raleigh metro area with 155 metros nationwide.

The purpose of the index is to provide a data driven understanding of the economic mobility and opportunities available in the Raleigh metro. The index will also provide a comparative analysis of how the Raleigh metro performs against other peer communities. A methodology for measuring metro economic mobility performance was developed with the goal of releasing new findings annually. The index focuses on data that measures the economic performance and representation of various diverse populations.

According to the index, the Raleigh metro’s Economic Mobility performance ranked 9th out of the 155 most populous metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the country. The index also highlights Raleigh as a top performer in the Southeast region and amongst MSAs with similar demographics.