According to the data, cities with higher levels of education did not always translate to the highest incomes.
Austin, Seattle and Charlotte all saw large gains in the number of residents who earned an income of $65,000 a year or more. But they were outpaced by places such as Bakersfield, Calif., and Sun Belt regions such as Phoenix and Las Vegas, which had larger jumps in richer residents.
Frey attributed the differences to younger college graduates in the high-tech areas who are moving up the career ladder and have not yet reached their peak levels of income.
The data comes from the American Community Survey. The information was collected
over three years, from 2006 through 2008, providing a snapshot of every U.S. community
with at least 20,000 residents.

