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The city is growing in nearly every way possible, but there is still a big difference between what educated and non-educated workers earn in Austin jobs.

"The State of Metropolitan America: On the Front Lines of Demographic Transformation," a recent study from the Brookings Institution, found that while Austin is becoming bigger, younger, more diverse and more educated, there is an increasing gap between education levels and income.

During 2008, 47 percent of non-Hispanic whites older than 25 in Austin had a bachelor's degree, while 23 percent of African Americans and 17 percent of Hispanics had one. That has led to Austin's 12th-place ranking for the highest wage disparity.

The report examined the demographic transformations that occurred between 2000 and 2008 in America's 100 largest metro areas. Results revealed that the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington and Houston areas are facing similar problems as Austin.

"The message is if you want to know what American society as a whole is going to look like in 10 years, just look at these big metro areas," Alan Berube, senior fellow and research director at the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program, and one of the report's authors, said. "That's where we're headed."

For the most part, Austin is similar to the other metro areas included in the report. However, the city defies aging trends and has one of the fastest growth rates in terms of child population. Austin has the fifth-largest share of children and is tied for the fifth-largest share of married couples with children.

Other findings of the report include:

• Even though the nation as a whole is growing larger, older and more diverse, cultural gaps between older whites and younger minorities are continuing to grow. There are now more than 100 million baby boomers and seniors throughout America. At the same time, one-third of the nation's population is non-white.
• Immigration is one of the biggest factors causing various areas throughout the country to grow. About one in four American children have at least one parent who is an immigrant.
• More than one in three adults had a post-secondary degree during 2008, which is an increase from one in four during 1990. However, African Americans and Hispanics, which make up a big chunk of the workforce, are more likely to not have a bachelor's degree.
• Households saw inflation-adjusted income decrease by more than $2,000 between 2000 and 2008. In addition, poverty is moving to the suburbs of many large metro areas, with the number of residents living in poverty increase by 15 percent since 2000.

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