If you thought the Keystone state had overcome its brain-drain problem, think again. A report last month from the Social Capital Project of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress examined the reality of brain drain across all 50 states.  Pennsylvania fared much worse than most states–ranking No. 42 out of 50–when it comes to retaining and attracting highly educated and skilled workers who are the building blocks of the knowledge economy.

The report uses U.S. Census data from 1940 to 2017 and focuses on highly educated people between the ages of 31 and 40 who are either “movers” or “leavers,” heading off to different states, or “stayers” who continue to live in their home state.

The key finding for Pennsylvania:  It had leavers who were more likely to be more at the top of the national education distribution than stayers were.

In 2017, Pennsylvania was among the biggest losers–a common theme among the so-called Rust Belt states–in what experts called “gross brain drain,” which is the simple difference between the share of leavers and the share of stayers in a state, not including people who move there.

One bright spot for Pennsylvania is that when researchers evaluated net brain drain (which factors in new “entrants” coming from other states, as well as those leaving for staying in a given state) dating back to 1970, the state actually reduced its net brain drain.

Putting it all together, the best performers since 1970 are East Coast states on the Acela corridor, the West Coast, and Illinois, Texas, Colorado, Arizona and Hawaii.

The report finds that the split geography of brain gain and brain drain has huge implications not only for the economy, but also for American society and politics

“By increasing social segregation, it limits opportunities for disparate groups to connect,” the report said.  “And by siphoning a source of economic innovation from emptying communities, brain drain can also lead to crumbling institutions and civil society.  As those natives who have more resources leave, those left behind may struggle to support churches, police athletic leagues, parent-teacher associations and local businesses.”

The end result is a “lopsided winner-take-all pattern of haves and have-nots,” says Richard Florida, a professor and urbanist at the University of Toronto and a senior editor of The Atlantic.  “Our politics become ever more divisive and polarized as the ‘big sort’ grows ever bigger, eating away at the social fabric of our nation.