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Low income
Rank Metro area Per-capita income Per-capita income growth (2002-2007)
1 McAllen, TX $18,316 24%
2 Brownsville, TX $19,667 22%
3 Laredo, TX $21,423 28%
4 Provo, UT $21,681 9%
5 Yuma, AZ $22,786 14%
6 Logan, UT $23,193 21%
7 Hanford, CA $23,418 24%
8 El Centro, CA $23,757 15%
9 Lake Havasu City, AZ $23,908 22%
10 St. George, UT $24,014 20%
11 Madera, CA $24,359 22%
12 Hinesville, GA $24,638 39%
13 Merced, CA $25,012 20%
14 Las Cruces, NM $25,106 25%
15 Morristown, TN $25,757 15%
16 Albany, GA $25,861 13%
17 Visalia, CA $25,920 22%
18 Pine Bluff, AR $25,980 27%
19 Greeley, CO $26,314 8%
20 Blacksburg, VA $26,382 25%
21 Valdosta, GA $26,504 18%
22 El Paso, TX $26,585 29%
23 College Station, TX $26,656 28%
24 Jonesboro, AR $26,846 23%
25 Muskegon, MI $26,880 12%
Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis Local Area Personal Income 2007.
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 Affordable wages  Few foreclosures
 Educated workers  Low housing costs
 Low crime  High local incomes
 A growing economy  Population growth
 Growing small business population

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How we picked the Best Places
This year we partnered with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to find the 50 most business-friendly communities in America.

With help from Robert Fairlie, an economist and leading scholar of entrepreneurship at the University of California, Santa Cruz, we developed a methodology and sifted through such data on factors such as per capita income, hourly wages, workforce quality, crime rates, taxes and foreclosures. More

Comments? E-mail the editors
Data partners

This package was produced in partnership with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Foreclosure data provided by RealtyTrac.

Housing price-to-income data provided by Moody's Economy.com.