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Surprised Montgomery county MD fell out of the top 20 considering how much wealth it has.
It’s so crazy because growing up in the DC area, Montgomery County (and Fairfax County) was known as the wealthiest suburb in the area and the place you’d move if you were looking for good schools, good neighborhoods, etc. I’m sure there’s still good neighborhoods but it seems less wealthier today than it was a decade ago.
If federal government was shrunk, and spending frozen, the D.C. area would crater much like Flint did since 1980, in the supplied article and inforgraphic. It's a wish of mine, and I hope it comes true. One MSA shouldn't have this unfair of an advantage, based upon the actions of government. One wonders if the nation's capitol was relocated to Omaha, Nebraska, what would happen. I use Omaha because it's probably the largest major city that's in the center of population geography.
Doubt it. Don’t get me wrong, obviously the federal government is a large employer here but government contracting and consulting companies mixed with the private sector tech companies employ far more people and the salaries are much higher on that side. So it’s not so much the federal government itself, it’s more of the government contracting world where a lot of that money comes from.
MSA Median Income, 2-Earner Families, 2021:
San Jose $213,340
San Francisco $190,872
Washington $165,392
Boston $156,057
Seattle $150,268
Baltimore $141,281
New York $136,239
Denver $135,156
Minneapolis $134,006
Philadelphia $133,834
Austin $133,371
Hartford $131,696
Raleigh $130,372
San Diego $129,991
Portland $128,022
Sacramento $125,860
Chicago $124,454
Richmond $122,158
Providence $121,385
Los Angeles $119,795
Atlanta $116,260
Cincinnati $116,087
Milwaukee $117,765
Dallas 115,970 Pittsburgh $115,923
Columbus $115,343
St Louis $114,022
Detroit $113,936
Kansas City $112,436
Columbus $111,997
Houston $110,597
Cleveland $109,905
Buffalo $109,479
Rochester $109,403
Indianapolis $109,187
Virginia Beach $108,962
Phoenix $108,542
Nashville $107,085
Jacksonville $106,002
Tampa $105,502
Salt Lake City $104,975
Louisville $104,588
Birmingham $104,575
Grand Rapids $104,296
Riverside $103,405
New Orleans $102,395
San Antonio $102,208
Memphis $101,910
Tulsa $100,500
Oklahoma City $99,235
Orlando $97,996
Tucson $97,037
Fresno $95,119
Miami $94,297
Las Vegas $93,649
Wow. Thanks. This just goes to show how much bang-for-your-buck you get in Pittsburgh where you can easily make six-figures as a dually-employed couple yet still buy a home for <$100,000. Same for Cleveland and Buffalo.
This also shows me how underpaid we are since our dual-income household earns just ~$75,000/year combined, and we are college-educated white-collar professionals.
The vast majority of these counties are part of big Combined Statistical Areas, and many of these counties neighbor one another.
1 Million+ Population in Bold
US Counties by Average Household Income, Top 5%
$600,000+---2021 Population---CSA/MSA/Micro Area
San Mateo, CA $969,437---737,988---San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland CSA
Marin, CA $952,925---260,206---San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland CSA New York, NY $939,719---1,576,876---New York-Newark CSA
Fairfield, CT $907,078---959,786---New York-Newark CSA
Westchester, NY $898,184---997,895---New York-Newark CSA
San Francisco, CA $896,454---815,201---San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland CSA
Walton, FL $888,878---80,069---Crestview-Fort Walton-Destin MSA Santa Clara, CA $846,384---1,885,508---San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland CSA
Arlington, VA $795,027---232,965---Washington-Baltimore-Arlington CSA
Somerset, NJ $785,627---345,647---New York-Newark CSA
Norfolk, MA $778,531---724,505---Boston-Worcester-Providence CSA Montgomery,MD $771,581---1,054,827---Washington-Baltimore-Arlington CSA
Morris, NJ $747,661---510,981---New York-Newark CSA
Collier, FL $724,445---385,980---Cape Coral-Fort Myers-Naples CSA
Monroe, FL $720,239---82,170---Miami-Port St Lucie-Fort Lauderdale CSA King, WA $699,984---2,252,305---Seattle-Tacoma CSA
Washington, DC $694,671---670,050---Washington-Baltimore-Arlington CSA
Howard, MD $687,052---334,529---Washington-Baltimore Arlington CSA Fairfax, VA $686,665---1,139,907---Washington-Baltimore-Arlington CSA Nassau, NY $682,304---1,390,907---New York-Newark CSA
Monmouth, NJ $676,629---645,354---New York-Newark CSA Contra Costa, CA $671,848---1,161,413---San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland CSA
Williamson, TN $671,604---255,735---Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro CSA
Bergen, NJ $668,941---953,819---New York-Newark CSA Middlesex, MA $664,921---1,614,742---Boston-Worcester-Providence CSA
Lincoln, SD $656,052---67,870---Sioux Falls MSA
Gallatin, MT $654,944---122,713---Bozeman Micro Area
Hamilton, IN $652,688---356,650---Indianapolis-Carmel-Muncie CSA Suffolk, NY $645,282---1,526,344---New York-Newark CSA
Ozaukee, WI $642,354---92,497---Milwaukee-Racine-Waukesha CSA
Alexandria, VA $636,062---154,706---Washington-Baltimore-Arlington CSA
Santa Barbara, CA $637,100---446,476---Santa Maria-Santa Barbara MSA Fulton, GA $635,614---1,065,334---Atlanta-Athens-Sandy Springs CSA
Lake, IL $632,066---711,239---Chicago-Naperville CSA
Martin, FL $630,934---159,942---Miami-Port St Lucie-Fort Lauderdale CSA
Boulder, CO $630,089---329,543---Denver-Aurora CSA
Napa, CA $629,747---136,206---San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland CSA
Essex, NJ $622,565---854,917---New York-Newark CSA Chatham, NC $621,284---77,889---Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill CSA
Santa Cruz, CA $616,754---267,792---San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland CSA
Hunterdon, NJ $616,274---128,924---New York-Newark CSA Alameda, CA $612,914---1,648,556--San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland CSA
Montgomery, PA $609,404---860,578---Philadelphia-Reading-Camden CSA Orange, CA $608,377---3,167,809---Los Angeles-Long Beach CSA
Union, NJ $607,363---572,114---New York-Newark CSA
Mercer, NJ $606,221---385,898---New York-Newark CSA
Albemarle, VA $604,950---113,535---Washington-Baltimore-Arlington CSA
Plymouth, MA $604,736---533,003---Boston-Worcester-Providence CSA
Olmsted, MN $604,496---163,436---Minneapolis-St Paul CSA
Surprised that Chatham outranks Orange or Wake in this metric....especially considering that top 5% average is most likely almost exclusively confined to one (large) gated community in the mostly semi-rural county.
Just goes to show that splicing and dicing numbers can really skew optics.
Using this metric; someone could say "Chatham County has the wealthiest top-earners in NC"....and that would be....laughable.
Surprised that Chatham outranks Orange or Wake in this metric....especially considering that top 5% average is most likely almost exclusively confined to one (large) gated community in the mostly semi-rural county.
Just goes to show that splicing and dicing numbers can really skew optics.
Using this metric; someone could say "Chatham County has the wealthiest top-earners in NC"....and that would be....laughable.
This is what happened when Chatham County is a lot smaller...5% of 78k = 9000, they may just as well all lived in that large gated community .
Quote:
Originally Posted by spencer114
Weird that Albemarle is assigned to the Washington CSA. It isn’t. It’s in Charlottesville, over 100miles away.
Yeah...and Charlottesville is way closer to Richmond than it's to DC. It's in neither CSA either way. The area IIRC just have some old money.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NOVA_guy
It’s so crazy because growing up in the DC area, Montgomery County (and Fairfax County) was known as the wealthiest suburb in the area and the place you’d move if you were looking for good schools, good neighborhoods, etc. I’m sure there’s still good neighborhoods but it seems less wealthier today than it was a decade ago.
Howard County had been #1 in Maryland for awhile. Calvert County's climb up the list is crazy, though. Calvert was not too different from the like of Anne Arundel County (i.e. MHI somewhere around 100k-105k...still high income but not THAT high in DMV standard) but has a higher MHI than MoCo nowaday.
Also, the difference between FFX and MoCo had been fairly large for awhile. Was something like 110k to 95k in 2010 (Howard is something like 108k just behind FFX), and not surprisingly, the latest number continues to show FFX and HoCo being head-to-head. The big difference? FFX has like 3x the population of Howard County .
Looking back at 2010 number, though, the SF Bay Area counties (Santa Clara and San Mateo) were quite lower, San Francisco MHI back then was like $80k (Putting it somewhere around #40 or so), and Marin County is the only place in the Bay Area that truly stands out. A decade of tech boom later SF Bay Area climbed way up.
The place that fell hard is Oakland County MI anyway. That county was in Top 30 or so, and now not even in Top 100. That just to show the American automobile industry is still facing some headwinds despite doing better than the lows of 2008.
At the top end of average wealth, there has been somewhat of a shake up in the rankings over the past decade.
Top 25 Counties by Average Household Income, Top 5%, 2010:
$400,000+
New York, NY $757,702
Westchester, NY $714,047
Fairfield, CT $685,431
Marin, CA $627,273
Albemarle, VA $549,514
Morris, NJ $532,098
Alexandria, VA $515,375
Monmouth, NJ $512,090
Nassau, NY $510,324
Norfolk, MA $501,149
Fairfax, VA $496,509
Ozaukee, WI $487,805
Somerset, NJ $477,539
San Mateo, CA $476,294
Washington, DC $473,343
San Francisco, CA $472,606
Collier, FL $469,067
Bergen, NJ $459,912
Chester, PA $450,305
Arlington, VA $448,692
Lake, IL $444,941
Union, NJ $441,748
Midland, TX $438,217
Hunterdon, NJ $436,610
Santa Barbara, CA $436,189
Top 25 Counties by Average Household Income, Top 5%, 2021
$600,000+
San Mateo, CA $969,437
Marin, CA $952,925
New York, NY $939,719
Fairfield, CT $907,078
Westchester, NY $898,184
San Francisco, CA $896,454
Walton, FL $888,878
Santa Clara, CA $846,384
Arlington, VA $795,027
Somerset, NJ $785,627
Norfolk, MA $778,531
Montgomery,MD $771,581
Morris, NJ $747,661
Collier, FL $724,445
Monroe, FL $720,239
King, WA $699,984
Washington, DC $694,671
Howard, MD $687,052
Fairfax, VA $686,665
Nassau, NY $682,304
Monmouth, NJ $676,629
Contra Costa, CA $671,848
Williamson, TN $671,604
Bergen, NJ $668,941
Middlesex, MA $664,921
on a local note for me, it's still surreal to me to see the meteoric rise of the East Bay(Alameda & Contra Costa counties), which for decades was the blue collar, middle class suburban belt, whipping boy of San Francisco and Silicon Valley snobs. There are many long time wealthy towns in the East Bay but the massive injection of wealth from jobs in The City and Valley have catapulted the East Bay into an echelon of affluence that I, a local, find a bit amusing considering how decidedly unpretentious the area is.
In fact, the 2 East Bay counties rank in the Top 5 as far as earnings brought into the county by residents that work in jobs in other counties. I'm guessing jobs in The City as well as Santa Clara county, both of which border Alameda co.
Top 5 Counties by Inflow of Earnings, 2020
Kings, NY $52.575B
Alameda, CA $47.244B
Queens, NY $46.003B
Nassau, NY $40.253B
Contra Costa, CA $38.710B
Surprised that Chatham outranks Orange or Wake in this metric....especially considering that top 5% average is most likely almost exclusively confined to one (large) gated community in the mostly semi-rural county.
Just goes to show that splicing and dicing numbers can really skew optics.
Using this metric; someone could say "Chatham County has the wealthiest top-earners in NC"....and that would be....laughable.
Yes there are always some of the oddities that come up from time to time when looking at average wealth. We take it with a grain of salt.
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