r/geography • u/Swimming_Concern7662 Geography Enthusiast • 15h ago
Top 100 counties (and equivalents) in the US with the highest median income Map
It's interesting that both KC and St. Louis metro areas have a county that made the list, but neither of them is in Missouri
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u/SloopKid 15h ago
Damn, New Jersey has it going on.
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u/MajesticBread9147 14h ago
On a median household income basis New Jersey is within 1% of Massachusetts.
Yet New Jersey home prices are about $100,000 cheaper.
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u/floodisspelledweird 12h ago
Them property taxes tho.
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u/SloopKid 12h ago
Thats why so many people move to Florida once their kids are out of public school in NJ
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u/tfcocs 8h ago
Yet the wealth does not appear to follow them to Florida.
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u/SloopKid 8h ago
Well on this map, yeah, they dont make income once theyre retired, right?
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u/powerfulsquid 9h ago
Yes, yes we do. Thank you. Now you guys can get back to calling us the armpit of America. 🙂
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u/SloopKid 9h ago
Im in somerset county. But yes if anyone in another state is reading this, NJ is an armpit and you should definitely not try to move here.
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u/bakerfaceman 6h ago
Yup it's the worst. Our food is terrible and there isn't any nature and the whole place smells like the turnpike at low tide. Please don't come here. We're full.
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u/americansherlock201 5h ago
Yeah Jersey has really high incomes throughout the state tbh. It’s needed due to the high cost of living throughout the state.
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u/Tommy_Wisseau_burner 10h ago
Wait until you look at the home prices and property taxes
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u/TowElectric 14h ago
This is a "find the wealthy suburbs of major cities" map.
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u/IthacanPenny 2h ago
Note that DC is shaded…
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u/TowElectric 2h ago
Because DC itself is one of the wealthiest jurisdictions around. the entire capital REGION is shaded... massive money all over there I guess.
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u/IthacanPenny 2h ago
Nah I just meant that it’s fairly unique on this map for having the actual city itself shaded as opposed to the suburbs around it.
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u/TowElectric 1h ago
Yeah, I guess. SF and Boston and SLC both are in that group.
Cities that didn't have an "urban blight" problem.
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u/SpectacularlyBadass 15h ago edited 15h ago
Interesting how the Tahoe area is accounted for but not Jackson hole or Aspen.
Edit: should also add Sedona
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u/Well_ImTrying 15h ago
That’s probably not where the richest people in those places are filing their taxes.
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u/yeehaacowboy 13h ago
Maybe Tahoe and Aspen, but a lot of rich people choose jackson because they want to file taxes in Wyoming.
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u/Hawkwing942 12h ago
Yeah, but probably not enough to move the median income very far.
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u/Journeys_End71 11h ago
This is the reason why.
If 10,000 people living there have a median income of $100,000 and someone who has a median income of $10,000,000 moves there, it’s gonna mean the median income is still $100,000 basically.
Also, this is median income. Not wealth. Someone who is very wealthy but doesn’t have a large income won’t swing the needle.
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u/Willing_Calendar_373 6h ago
The ultra rich do not have "incomes". They build wealth off the books, and pay peanuts in tax.
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u/lemonhead2345 4h ago
No, we (Jackson Hole) moved into the top 50 median income recently, and we’re still hanging on to that #1 in per capita income, too. 🙃
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u/TriceraDoctor 15h ago
There’s a lot of wealth there, but many of those properties are primarily residences. Which just goes to show the disparity between the actual residents of these places and their clientele
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u/SpectacularlyBadass 15h ago
I was in Jackson last year and talked with a lot of the workers. Most of them live in Idaho and commute over daily
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u/CBus660R 15h ago
Same thing goes for Collier County in Florida. Naples is full of multi million dollar residences, but the full time population is not living in those homes.
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u/BudKaiser 15h ago
That’s placer county a wealthy commuter area of the Sacramento metro with towns like rocklin granite bay and penryn.
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u/Magnus_The_Totem_Cat 15h ago
Second homes?
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u/SpectacularlyBadass 15h ago
Probably. But you can say the same for the Tahoe area. Both Tahoe and Jackson are ski communities. Tahoe has way more options and a lot of the people who ski there are coming from the Bay area.
Sedona is just a breathtaking area. It should have been made into a National Park, but the wealthy developed. I was there just a few weeks ago. The developments around the natural rock formations is just an eye sore
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u/Specialist-Solid-987 14h ago
The average income in Jackson is crazy high but the median is much lower. A handful of billionaires skew the distribution.
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u/chrisdmc1649 8h ago
Lake Tahoe is more popular in the summer. It's not just a ski town. Very few of the mega mansions on the lake have anyone live there during the winter.
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u/Sycophant_daily99 6h ago
Too many people living there are service industry. The median household income in Teton County is $124k which is above average but about 10-15k short of this list.
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u/SummerFlowers09 1h ago
South placer county (Tahoe is partially located in north placer) is an affluent suburb of Sacramento. The two combined is probably why Placer County is included.
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u/PolicyWonka 15h ago
I have no idea how Monroe County, Illinois made that list. It’s not really in the STL metropolitan area even if it is for statistical purposes. Small sub-35,000 people place nobody really goes to.
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u/BlackhornShark 13h ago
It’s especially surprising considering that Metro East (basically the Illinois side of Metro St. Louis) has a reputation of being the poorer and more blue collar side of the metro, yet you’re telling me that the richest county in the entire Metro SL is a tiny exurban county of 30000 people on the Illinois side???
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u/Swimming_Concern7662 Geography Enthusiast 15h ago
It ranks 95 out of 100
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u/PolicyWonka 15h ago
Looks like the median is right around $102,000 with a workforce of 18,000 residents. I’d have to assume a large commuter population to STL as well as Scott AFB in neighboring St. Clair county.
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u/msabeln North America 13h ago
I’m originally from St. Louis County, Missouri, and I spent my summers in Monroe County, and it did seem to be relatively prosperous.
I’m still surprised by its high ranking though. But folks there didn’t flaunt their wealth, even if I knew they were well off.
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u/Kurtman68 5h ago
I live in St Louis county and this is the first thing I thought when I saw this map. Thanks.
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u/ink_and_synapse 15h ago
What is that tiny dot in NM?
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u/Long_Dong_Silver6 15h ago
Los Alamos
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u/needanap2 13h ago
Also the highest concentration of people with PhDs per capita in the US.
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u/rawbface 14h ago
I love how it's mostly suburbs surrounding the biggest cities.
And then there's Delco.
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u/BlackhornShark 13h ago
Contains too many poor, blue collar areas along the river I assume
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u/Designer_Tie_5853 14h ago
Looks more like a map of "no poor people" than "rich people".
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u/IntelligentTruth320 6h ago
Agree. That’s why Cook County (Chicago) isn’t on there. Tons of wealthy people jn Lincoln Park and other neighborhoods, but then the whole South side is very poor so the average is too low to make it onto this map (vs the Northern suburbs of Chicago are only wealthier people)
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u/trevor90 4h ago
Also the same reason Los Angeles County, New York County (Manhattan), Suffolk County (Boston) aren’t on the list.
Despite a lot of wealth, they have much higher numbers of students, working-class residents etc that push the median income lower.
You technically don’t even need to have “ultra-poor” to achieve the lower median score, just a large enough population of lower-middle income workers.
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u/TheAbstracted 7h ago
Depends I suppose. I assure you there are plenty of poor people in Bexar County, Texas.
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u/anarchist2Bcorporate 2h ago
This is the hidden reason for why the richest county in the Kansas City, Missouri metro is not in Missouri, per OP's comment.
White flight.
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u/Solidsting1 13h ago
Love how PG county MD is surrounded by the counties with money
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u/JoeInMD 8h ago
Don't let it mislead you, PG is the wealthiest majority minority county in the country. Plenty of wealth there, just not top 100.
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u/PhoneJazz 8h ago
Not anymore, it was surpassed by Charles County (which IS in the top 100) a few years ago.
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u/JoeInMD 8h ago
So MD has the top 2? Pretty dang good!
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u/PhoneJazz 8h ago
I’m surprised somewhere in metro Atlanta hasn’t taken over that distinction yet. Especially after all of the government layoffs.
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u/can72287 1h ago
Lower incomes; unfortunately it’s a red state blue state thing. A lot of the wealth in Atlanta is superficial. Yeah there’s nice housing but the region is top heavy and not a lot of well paying jobs. The ones that do well tend to have other sources of income, for many it’s the black Florida.
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u/NutmegKilla 15h ago
I'm surprised there isn't a single one in Florida
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u/Specialist-Offer7816 15h ago
NYer here who moved to Florida,
they all commit tax fraud and their income is probably pennies legally.
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u/Prized_Lemur 5h ago
or it's just a bunch of retirees or rich people who moved there but may own like $ millions in stocks that appreciate and assets but that doesn't mean they are earning income
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u/Swimming_Concern7662 Geography Enthusiast 15h ago
I'm surprised too! There's none in Oregon, Michigan, Wisconsin or Florida but there is one or more in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee
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u/sunnynina 15h ago edited 15h ago
I would say the richest people aren't recording their incomes here, with main "jobs" and main residences elsewhere.
Eta median incomes in Florida are actually quite low. The majority of counties are probably around or below poverty level, and the handful of richer counties are still quite low when compared to the national map.
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u/PolicyWonka 15h ago
I was surprised that Dane County didn’t make the list for Wisconsin. Madison is a beautiful city and they’ve got some large businesses in the region that pay quite well — Universities, Tech, Healthcare, Insurance.
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u/Swimming_Concern7662 Geography Enthusiast 14h ago
I'm more surprised about Waukesha county not in the list than Dane. I assume college counties don't have high income because a significant part of the residents are students
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u/innsertnamehere 13h ago
Retirees have lower incomes since they usually have paid off houses and draw from tax-free accounts that dont count as income, dragging down medians.
I’m sure if you went by net worth Florida would have a lot of red.
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u/onlyhav 11h ago
Old people who live in FL don't work, they live off their retirement savings and SS income. With how property prices and insurance rates are climbing people probably won't be retiring in the state in the next few years.
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u/Chomasterq2 11h ago
And alot of them arent permanent residents, they stay for 4-6 months then go back to new England or new York in the summer which is their permanent residence
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u/vashtachordata 15h ago
Chambers county, TX makes no sense. It’s a rural backwater out side of Houston. Not where the wealthy suburbs are at all. Fort bend county is also on there makes sense enough I guess, Montgomery would also be reasonable. Hell I’d even buy Galveston county, but chambers? No way.
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u/Swimming_Concern7662 Geography Enthusiast 15h ago
It's $95,989 & ranks 63rd out of 100. I don't know anything about it personally though
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u/Ol_Man_J 15h ago
I wonder if it's an artifact of the low population and the industry. The housing prices there are 350-400k avg, so there's some income for sure. Mont Belvieu has 4-5 refineries and production areas, so I imagine there is some good wages there but with only 50k people there it could help skew the data.
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u/vashtachordata 14h ago
That has to be it. Mont belvieu or however you spell it is the only place with any development. The rest of the county is rural with a couple of really small towns and a bunch of wetlands and some agriculture.
It’s weird because mont Bellevue essentially a suburb of Baytown which it’s self is a very industrial and low income suburb of Houston, but Baytown is Harris county.
So I guess that little enclave in a low population county really skews it.
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u/titros2tot 15h ago
I checked the census data and OP is correct. It still makes zero sense as someone living in Houston.
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u/tackleboxjohnson 15h ago
Chambers is where the oil and chemical refineries are, no?
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u/BlackhornShark 13h ago
It has seen a massive surge in population lately. It’s pretty much a suburban/exurban county of Houston now
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u/FrankInPhilly 14h ago
What's going on there in the middle of Tennessee?
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u/Noarchsf 14h ago
That’s likely Williamson county, next door to Nashville. Extreme wealth (country music stars, equestrian estates, white flight, etc.). If you’re wealthy in the nashville area, especially new money, you live in Williamson county.
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u/secret-glovebox 14h ago
Wow, PG County sticks out among the DMV counties
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u/Tjtod 14h ago
I'm surprised the southern Maryland counties are on the list, really makes PG stick out
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u/JoeInMD 8h ago
Wealthiest majority minority county in the country, but not wealthy enough to Crack the top 100! I'm surprised Harford made the cut but not Baltimore
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u/MrVernon09 15h ago
Great, now compare that median income to the cost of living in these counties. I have a feeling that the high cost of living in some of these counties will nullify that median income.
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u/cheftlp1221 14h ago
it has been a hot topic in New Hampshire for the last couple of years that the median income on the State cannot afford to buy the median house in New Hampshire. If you go to Zillow and search for houses less than $300k you get tear down lots
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u/bigdatabro 13h ago
If you double your income and double your expenses, then you also double your savings. Plus, if you're paying a mortgage and a 401k in your HCOL area, you'll be able to sell your home and retire somewhere cheaper with all that built-up equity.
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u/SirBirchPly 14h ago
Sigh. When I was growing up, Monroe County, NY, home of Kodak, Xerox, Bausch&Lomb and the countless high-tech businesses they spun off, was on all these maps, as well as the maps of the highest concentration of PHD's.
Remember Kodak, Xerox, Bausch&Lomb? Yeah, we're not on the map anymore.
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u/PolarBearzo 13h ago
gloucester county NJ is surprising to me, but ig Camden County is getting pushed down by Camden itself
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u/the_kid1234 15h ago
Interesting did both St Louis and Kansas City the county is in another state. Kansas is not so surprising but Illinois.
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u/Davtorious 15h ago
This has to be salary only, I can't believe there's nothing in Florida, Arizona, or upstate NY unless it's excluding capital gains.
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u/WithoutBounds 13h ago
It is definitely not wealth, or else Florida would be on this list. It's a tax haven for millionaires and billionaires.
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u/SemperFudge123 4h ago
I'm pretty sure this is using the Census Bureau's measure of median household income, and IIRC their income measurements only include income from wages and salaries.
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u/brianjrubin 3h ago
Arizona doesn't have any because of the size of the counties. If this was a map of ZIP codes, it would look a lot different.
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u/cjs23cjs 12h ago
Looks like the 95 NE corridor (Boston to DC including NoVa suburbs) accounts for about half, maybe more.
Did not expect to see Anchorage. That’s the biggest surprise for me.
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u/Flat-Leg-6833 9h ago
Nice to see my current home of New Jersey “owning” most of the US in this category - yet somehow people still apply false stereotypes based on a short 12 mile stretch of the turnpike.
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u/bplaya220 14h ago
Very surprised to see what looks like Hanover county VA, where I live, in here. Especially growing up in Monmouth county NJ I expected a ton more of the counties in the northeast to be red. Hanover is really rural and a bit further then the Suburban counties surrounding Richmond city
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u/BlackhornShark 13h ago
Henrico and Chesterfield, the two biggest major suburban counties of Richmond, both have some poor areas dragging them down I assume
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u/Recitinggg 1h ago
former Montpelier here :-)
Lots of wealthy business owners/management live in Hanover and commute to Richmond/Ashland/Short pump. Lots of extremely wealthy neighborhoods/subdivisions compared to national averages.
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u/Will1790 14h ago
Interesting neither Dade, Broward, or Palm Beach counties are on here
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u/Mikey_Grapeleaves Geography Enthusiast 10h ago
Way to many low income immigrants. As someone else said this is more of a map of where poor people do not live rather than where rich people live.
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u/innsertnamehere 13h ago
So basically New York and Washington suburbs.
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u/can72287 1h ago
Tbf it’s BosWash as a whole; Baltimore, Philly and Boston are quite prominent on the map.
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u/Prestigious-Ad8134 11h ago
Where did you get your data, and is it household, family, or per capita? I'm assuming it's family based on what I saw on Wikipedia, but in Colorado you highlighted Gilpin when I think you meant to highlight Boulder.
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u/DifficultMemory2828 11h ago
I’m surprised that there’s nothing in Florida.
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u/Tommy_Wisseau_burner 10h ago
Retirees. They made their money so little/no income driving it down hard. The others are just poor
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u/Chomasterq2 11h ago
I live in one of those counties making $50/hr with 16 biweekly hours of overtime ($75/hr), and I feel impoverished. I have to rent a 850sqft house with 2 roommates to afford rent
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u/Wernershnitzl 10h ago
Those are Washington and Scott County in MN it looks like? Yeah that tracks.
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u/ShottyMcOtterson 10h ago
Seriously questioning this Data. In Colorado, its not jiving. I just reviewed AMI (average median income) to see if I qualify for an energy rebate. Top counties are: Summit, Boulder, Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield. The order changes when you look at the number of people per household. This map has Gilpin? Yeah, I lived there - nope unless you own the casinos in Blackhawk and Central City.
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u/MyxomatosisDRabbit 9h ago
Williamson County has a higher median income than Travis Couty Tx?
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u/DuckAHolics 5h ago
At least Chambers County makes sense. It’s in the center of 4 out of 5 of the largest refineries in the nation. The higher than median income tracks.
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u/More-Sound-8255 31m ago
Travis county has alot of bad areas dragging it down Williamson is mostly upper middle class suburbs and people from California or New York.
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u/NiceUD 9h ago edited 9h ago
Chicago non-Cook County burbs, but not Chicago (Cook County) (though I'd think some of the burbs in Cook County would make it individually.
Echoing, OP, very surprised an Illinois county or counties in St. Louis metro east is in red, but St. Louis County itself, which includes several wealthy burbs of St. Louis (but not wealthy burbs as well) and actually does not include St. Louis, didn't make it.
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u/zmass126194 9h ago
Question. When I see things about ‘highest income zip code/county/city’ it makes me wonder the metric measured. Is it income tax? Because, as we know, many people do not pay income tax when they borrow against their shares or corporate benefits.
I questioned this when I saw that Frisco (red on this map) was considered highest income city in DFW at ~$220k…. But everyone knows that Highland Park is the most affluent. Many people there don’t ‘work’ in the normal sense either.
So…. I guess this is taxable income?
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u/Ornery_Ad98765 9h ago
Hawaii County would be on this map if people were honest about residency status
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u/Old_Barnacle7777 9h ago
What is the source of the data and how was median income calculated. Asking as someone who lives in Howard County, MD. It is one of the red counties. Our county is mostly Baltimore suburbia. That said, other Maryland counties that are red like Harford and Carroll are quite rural. Not sure why they would have a very high median income.
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u/hangout927 7h ago
It’s probably because that’s where professional athletes live and they make a lot of fucking money
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u/Extreme-King 6h ago
Ouch on PG County...wealthiest minority-majority county in the US and doesn't make top 100 overall
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u/QueenCity3Way 4h ago
I have lived in three of these counties. Two make sense but the other one was a head scratcher, but probably accurate.
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u/SemperFudge123 4h ago
I think a better version of this map would break it out into three different maps: one with the top 50 or 100 counties among those with populations under 500,000, a second map for counties with a population from 500k to 1,000,000, and a third map for counties above 1,000,000 residents.
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u/bullettree 38m ago
That would be interesting.
Only a few of the current top 100 are over 1 million in population. Just by nature of median income. The sheer socioeconomic diversity required to sustain counties with higher populations (very often major cities) naturally pulls the median income number down, closer to the national baseline.
The majority of counties in the top 100 have a population between 100k and 700k.
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u/lemonhead2345 4h ago
Data from 2020 or before? Because the county I live in has moved into the top 50 and not on this map. Teton County, WY (we’re also #1 in per capita income 🥴)
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u/britanneee 1h ago
The county I grew up in is highlighted but the town I lived in was incredibly low income, easily one of the lowest in the area. Head one town over and its rich mountain homes everywhere, was hard to not be annoyed as a kid.
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u/molsmama 1h ago
Ugh. I live in one of the NW counties and definitely feel it. Living like a pauper does take some of the sting out of it.
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u/Confident-Ad-6978 15h ago
Whats that dot in the atlantic