The Forbes Magazine reported that Loudoun County tops the list of America’s 25 richest counties for the second consecutive year in a row. Loudoun County is followed by Fairfax County, Va., Arlington County, Va., Stafford County, Va., Prince William County, Va., Charles County, Md., and Alexandria City, Va.
Loudoun County, Va. median household incomes are higher than anywhere else in the country. In Loudoun County, affluent suburb to the west of Washington, D.C., families take home a median $110,643 annually.
For most people, wealth is associated with glitzy Southern California, big oil states, and New York Wall Street bankers and investors. However, studies show that often wealth trickles down from big metropolitan cities to high-end suburbs.
19 of the 25 richest counties in the country are on the East Coast. This is partly because Forbes looks ONLY at the middle incomes, and counties in the East tend to be smaller, thereby allowing for less of a spread between the richest and poorest workers.
Data used by Forbes come from the U.S. Census Bureau – the most recent data available are from the calendar year 2008 and include 1,889 counties.
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The biggest source of income for Loudouners is the federal government, which generates a wealth of jobs, keeping unemployment in the D.C. metro area at a low 6.2% (the national average is still near 10%). The best-paid workers from D.C. take their money home to Loudoun, VA, Fairfax, VA, Arlington, VA, Stafford, MD, Prince William, VA, where jobs have grown 4% between the second quarter of 2007 and the second quarter of 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
However, a big chunk of that income goes toward maintaining the every-day life. Loudoun homeowners pay a median $4,844 per year in property taxes and the housing is relatively expensive. Tax burdens are similarly high in a lot of well-off counties. Also, commuting to and from work can be burdensome.
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Like Loudoun, a number of the country’s wealthiest households are tightly concentrated in counties around the nation’s capital. Six of the richest counties lie on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.: Fairfax County, Va., Arlington County, Va., Stafford County, Va., Prince William County, Va., Charles County, Md., and Alexandria City, Va.
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In Maryland, not far from D.C., lies another cluster of wealthy counties. Howard County, Md., a suburb of Baltimore, has a standout school system with standardized test scores that consistently beat out the national average, and median household incomes of $101,710. In nearby Montgomery County, where 59% of residents over 25 have an advanced degree, households bring in a median $93,999. Historic Calvert County, Md., has profited from its roots as a tobacco-rich farmland as well as its proximity to Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, and claims a median income of $89,049.
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The New York City suburbs reap the benefits of the big city’s financial industry. Six of the wealthiest counties in the country–Hunterdon County, N.J., Somerset County, N.J., Morris County, N.J., Nassau County, N.Y., Putnam County, N.Y. and Suffolk County, N.Y.–are all part of the New York metropolitan area.
According to Forbes, these N.Y. counties may be knocked a few rungs down the list when the next American Community Survey is released later this year. The new data will reflect incomes for 2009, when the near-collapse of Wall Street stripped many families in the city–and its wealthy outlying suburbs–of their paychecks.
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Counties No. 18 and 19 on the list are two wealth centers in California: Marin County and Santa Clara County. Picturesque and stylish Marin offers scenic vistas, health care industry and technology industry money–Kaiser Permanente and Comcast ( CMCSA – news - people ) are among its major employers–and a median income of $88,101. Well-paid, highly skilled tech jobs boost the median income to $87,287 in Santa Clara.
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Nashville, Tenn., suburb Williamson County and Atlanta, Ga., suburb Forsyth County are the only representatives from the non-coastal south–but just like the other counties on the list, they have big-city growth industries to thank for their prosperity.
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NOTE: Median income should NOT be confused with wealth. In high cost-of-living areas, where housing and education are expensive, it actually can be very difficult to accumulate any meaningful wealth despite the *high* median income.
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SOURCE: Forbes.com
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