Two divergent schools of thought exist about the income levels in El Paso, Texas:

1. They are uncommonly low. El Paso’s current per capita income ranks 99th among the nation’s 100 major metropolitan areas.
2. They are increasing with unusual speed. El Paso’s record for income growth over the past quarter-century is the best among the same 100 markets.

This story deals with the second point.

Portfolio.com combed through 25 years of federal income data for the nation’s 100 biggest metros, covering the period from 1984 through 2009. Our study focused on per capita income (PCI), a key indicator of earning power and economic vitality, based on figures compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

El Paso emerges from the study as the nation’s undisputed leader in income growth.

Click here for an interactive look at the top 10 regions for income growth.

Portfolio.com calculated growth rates over 25 different time spans for each market, yielding an overall score for income growth. All of those spans ended in 2009, ranging from the long term (1984-2009) to a single year (2008-2009).

El Paso holds first place in 13 of those 25 spans. Its per capita income, for example, expanded rapidly over the long run—147 percent during the 20-year period from 1989 to 2009. And it has grown nicely in the short term—2 percent during the 12 months from ’08 to ’09. No other market surpassed either of those performances.

PCI is defined as the average amount of money received by each resident of a given area in a given year. It encompasses such diverse sources of income as salaries, interest payments, dividends, rental income, and government checks.

Bridgeport-Stamford, Connecticut, posted the highest per capita income of any major metro in 2009, $73,720. The runners-up were San Francisco-Oakland at $59,696 and Washington at $56,442.

El Paso was mired in 99th place with its PCI of $28,638. The only market to finish lower was another Texas metro along the Mexican border, McAllen-Edinburg, at $19,720.

But Portfolio.com took a different tack—looking for the strongest growth rates, not the highest income levels.

The best markets for income growth, according to the study, lie in a broad swath from the Middle Atlantic region to the Southwest. Right behind El Paso in the national standings are Baton Rouge, Baltimore, Virginia Beach-Norfolk, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, and Jackson, Mississippi.

The only exception to this geographic rule is the 10th-place finisher, Honolulu.

These markets have shown remarkable stability during the current recession. Five of the top-10 metros actually managed to boost their per capita incomes between 2008 and 2009. Only five of the study’s other 90 metros could say the same.

At the opposite end of the standings is Atlanta, the U.S. market with the worst record for long-term income growth. It finished dead last in six of the study’s 25 time spans—and next-to-last in another five.

Click here for an interactive look at the bottom-10 regions for income growth.

Atlanta’s per capita income of $36,482 ranked 69th last year, putting it well ahead of El Paso. But the tables were turned when the spotlight was switched to growth rates.

Atlanta’s PCI, for instance, has increased just 87 percent since 1989, and actually declined 4.8 percent between 2008 and 2009. Both performances were dwarfed by El Paso’s rapid growth.

The tail end of the income-growth rankings is a mixture of Sunbelt and Northern industrial markets. The former have been badly hurt by declines in real estate prices in recent years, while the latter continue to suffer a steady erosion of their manufacturing bases.

Detroit ranks next-to-last in income growth, based on the calculations by Portfolio.com and bizjournals, with Raleigh, Toledo, and Charlotte filling out the bottom five.