Community Corner

Surprised? D.C. Suburbs Make Richest Counties List

Suburban Maryland and Virginia counties fill most of the Census Bureau's list of the country's wealthiest counties.

The Census Bureau has confirmed that, once again, the Washington region again dominates the list of the most affluent places in the United States, the Washington Post reports.

Among more than 3,000 counties across the nation, Loudoun County is the richest, with a median household income last of almost $119,000, according to the Census Bureau news release.

Maryland’s Howard County and Virginia’s Fairfax, Arlington and Stafford counties also made it into the top 10.

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Montgomery County and Prince William County fell just below the 10 wealthiest counties. Also in the top 30 were Charles, Calvert, Anne Arundel and St. Mary’s counties in Maryland.

"Metropolitan counties along the East Coast continued to have the highest median household income and lowest poverty in the country," said Lucinda Dalzell, chief of the Census Bureau's Small Areas Estimates Branch, in the release. "These counties are located in large metro areas, such as Boston and New York, and are heavily concentrated in the Northern Virginia portion of the Washington area; Northern Virginia alone accounted for about one-fifth of the nation's 50 highest-income counties."

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The Washington area has reigned at the top of the most affluent counties for years, in large part because it has so many residents with college degrees working at professional jobs, the newspaper says. That gives the region a disproportionately large share of two-income households in which both adults have well-paying jobs.

Here’s the Census Bureau list of the counties with the highest median income:

1.     Falls Church city, Va. $121,250

2.     Loudoun County, Va. $118,934

3.      Los Alamos County, N.M. $112,115

4.      Howard County, Md. $108,234

5.      Fairfax County, Va., $106,690

6.      Hunterdon County, N.J. $103,301

7.      Arlington County, Va. $99,255

8.      Douglas County, Colo. $98,426

9.      Stafford County, Va. $95,927

10.  Somerset County, N.J. $95,574

11.   Morris County, N.J. $95,236

12.   Montgomery County, Md. $94,365

13.   Prince William County, Va. $93,011


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