The Benefits of a Good ZIP Code Aren't Bunk

 

“James Heckman and Sadegh Eshaghnia dispute the notion that neighborhoods shape our lives ("ZIP Code Is Destiny? Turns Out That's Bunk," op-ed, Sept. 5). Many factors, including family environments, matter for children's outcomes, but we and several other experts respectfully disagree that neighborhoods aren't one of them.

 

Messrs. Heckman and Eshaghnia first claim that the Department of Housing and Urban Development's 1990s moving to opportunity experiment -- which gave families vouchers to relocate to lower-poverty neighborhoods -- didn't improve outcomes. There is clear evidence to the contrary. Children who moved at young ages were 32% more likely to attend college and earned 34% more in adulthood. They also were healthier as adults, with fewer hospital visits and healthcare expenses. Their parents benefited too, with lower rates of depression, obesity and diabetes. The policy proved highly effective in improving families' well-being and boosting children's economic mobility.

 

Messrs. Heckman and Eshaghnia's second claim concerns other research showing that children who move to better neighborhoods at earlier ages fare better as adults. They believe these studies are biased -- that "those who move to better neighborhoods early on tend to be more affluent, more educated and more likely to have intact families" -- and that it is these differences, not neighborhoods themselves, that drive better outcomes.

 

Yet the goal of this research was to address such biases, in part by comparing siblings. Consider two sisters, Jane, 4, and Emily, 8, whose family moved to a lower-poverty neighborhood while they were growing up. The data show that on average Jane is more likely to go to college, have a stable job and earn more as an adult than Emily. The difference can't arise simply because Jane grew up in a more affluent or educated family. It is driven by her spending more of her childhood in a better neighborhood.

 

A battery of additional tests supports the conclusion that sorting bias is minimal. Data from California birth records, for example, show that there is no link between children's birth weights or lengths and the age at which they move to a better neighborhood, revealing that differences emerge only after children move to better areas.

 

Several other studies have replicated these findings and reached the same conclusion using different methods. One analyzed housing demolitions that forced public-housing residents to move to higher-opportunity areas; another examined a housing mobility experiment in Chicago; and a third used variation in neighborhoods arising from assignments of U.S. Army personnel to military bases. Each found evidence that neighborhoods shape children's life outcomes, especially if they move to better areas at young ages.

 

That isn't to say that ZIP codes determine everything. Other factors matter too, from parents to educational quality. Policies that address each of these -- including proven, cost-effective approaches that give families access to high-opportunity neighborhoods -- give us the best chance of making the American dream a reality for all of our children.

 

Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren

 

Harvard and MIT

 

Cambridge, Mass.” [1]

 

1. The Benefits of a Good ZIP Code Aren't Bunk. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 09 Sep 2025: A14.