{"id":2449,"date":"2006-06-08T16:25:55","date_gmt":"2006-06-08T23:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/06\/08\/the-richest-and-poorest-counties-and-cities-in-the-us\/"},"modified":"2006-06-08T16:25:55","modified_gmt":"2006-06-08T23:25:55","slug":"the-richest-and-poorest-counties-and-cities-in-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2449","title":{"rendered":"The Richest and Poorest Counties and Cities in the US"},"content":{"rendered":"

A reader asked that I expand on the earlier post about\u00c2 the poorest\u00c2 counties and richest cities in the US. \u00c2 His question was really good, so I went back and looked at the data (since I collected it months ago).\u00c2 This data is only for counties and places with over 250,000 people. I figured I would add a broader context by providing a few more charts, and talking about some of the measures.\u00c2 I realize that many people have no idea what the poverty level or the median income in the US is.\u00c2 This<\/a> chart shows the poverty thresholds for various family sizes.\u00c2 In 2004 the poverty threshold for a family of four (2 kids two adults) was $19,157.\u00c2 The median income for families (regardless of household size) was $44,684.\u00c2 All of the graphs below are from the 2004 American Community Survey.\u00c2 Since this survey is not a Census, the results are listed as estimates (They are very reliable estimates).<\/p>\n

In the earlier post, I should also have noted that the places and counties listed are only cities with over 250,000 people<\/strong>.\u00c2 Unfortunately, the American Community Survey does not have a readily available list of smaller counties or places and their median incomes for 2004.\u00c2 Thus, this reflects the countries urban population.\u00c2 However, in this post, I have added the poorest counties and the wealthiest cities with over 250,000 people.\u00c2 Overall, the poorest urban<\/strong> counties are primarily in the south, and cities with the highest median family incomes are really spread out. If you are looking for data on smaller cities or rural areas, the best data is provided by the 2000 Census. (I have added the link below.)<\/p>\n

Since I gathered that data a long time ago, I had forgotten why I did not put the cities with the highest median incomes.\u00c2 I now remember why…since they are only looking at cities, we miss the fact that in the modern city wealth is concentrated not in the city, but in the surrounding suburbs.\u00c2 The Census Bureau uses the term places as a synonym for cities over 250,000 people.\u00c2 The suburbs or surrounding areas of these cities are not included.\u00c2 Thus, places like Scarsdale, NY (an extremely wealthy New York suburb), where the median family income in 1999 was around 200,000 dollars, are not included in the analysis because they have under 250,000 residents. Additionally, very poor small towns like\u00c2 Jonestown, MS<\/a>, where half the people live in poverty are also excluded.\u00c2 Both small towns and rural areas are not in these lists.\u00c2 So, the way a geographic area is constructed does affect the who is included in these lists.\u00c2<\/p>\n

The New York city area deserves a special mention since includes more than one of the poorest and richest counties.\u00c2 In the New York city metro area the contrast between wealth and poverty is profound.\u00c2 Bronx county and Kings county are both part of New York city…the boroughs of the Bronx and Brooklyn are located in these counties, and they are surrounded by very wealthy suburban counties, which are listed in the top 15 counties.\u00c2 While there are many metropolitan areas with poor cities and rich suburbs, New York is striking because the contrast is so extreme.\u00c2<\/p>\n

There are of course other ways to measure the economic status of geographic areas.\u00c2 The first variable that can be changed or manipulated is the geographic areas as I noted above…we could look at states, counties, metropolitan areas, cities, towns, zipcodes, census tracts, and even census block groups.\u00c2 We can also look at different measures of the economic status of an area, such as the (un)employment rate, the per capita income, the percent of people receiving government assistance, and several other measures (that an economist would know more about LOL!).\u00c2 These graphs focus on families and people and families in counties and cities over 250,000.\u00c2 To prevent graph overload, I wil add another post in a couple days the uses another geographic unit…states.\u00c2 I’ll show you the richest and poorest states in that post.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, you can check out your local area by using the Census Bureau’s American<\/a> Fact Finder site.\u00c2 The results can even be sorted by areas as small as Census block groups or zip codes.\u00c2 The site also contains additional information gathered from the 2000 Census, such as the racial make up of the area, the educational level of the people, the percent male and female, and so on.
\n\u00c2
\n10 Poorest Counties over 250,000 (% in poverty)
\n1.\u00c2 Hidalgo County, TX (43.6)
\n2.\u00c2 Cameron County, TX (35.8)
\n3.\u00c2 El Paso County, TX (32.3)
\n4.\u00c2 Bronx County, NY (30.6)
\n5.\u00c2 Philadelphia County, PA (24.9)
\n6.\u00c2 Baltimore city, MD (23.9)
\n7.\u00c2 Orleans Parish, LA (23.2)
\n8.\u00c2 Kings County, NY (22.6)
\n9.\u00c2 Caddo Parish, LA (21.7)
\n10.\u00c2 St. Louis city, MO (21.6)<\/p>\n

10 Poorest Places Over 250,000 (% in poverty)
\n1.\u00c2 Detroit, MI (33.6)
\n2.\u00c2 El Paso, TX (28.8)
\n3.\u00c2 Miami, FL (28.3)
\n4.\u00c2 Newark, NJ (28.1)
\n5.\u00c2 Atlanta, GA (27.8)
\n6.\u00c2 Long Beach, CA (26.4)
\n7.\u00c2 Milwaukee, WI (26.0)
\n8.\u00c2 Buffalo, NY (25.9)
\n9.\u00c2 Philadephia, PA (24.9)
\n10.\u00c2 Memphis, TN (24.6)<\/p>\n

15 Counties Over 250,000 in the US with the Highest Median Family Income ($)(the ones with * are in suburban NYC)
\n1. Fairfax County, VA ( 90,194)
\n2. Montgomery County, MD (90,187)
\n3. Morris County, NJ (90,168)*
\n4. Howard County, MD (90,157)
\n5. Monmouth County, NJ (90,148)*
\n6. Somerset County, NJ (90,133)*
\n7. Westchester County, NY (89,249)*
\n8. Chester County, PA (88,164)
\n9. San Mateo County, CA (87,762)
\n10. Nassau County, NY (87,558)*
\n11. Fairfield County, CT (87,434)*
\n12. Rockland County, NY (86,624)*
\n13. Santa Clara County, CA (85,581)
\n14. Norfolk County, MA (85,091)
\n15. Bergen County, NJ (84,604)*<\/p>\n

15 Places Over 250,000 With the Highest Median Family Income ($)
\n1. San Jose, CA (77,232)
\n2. Anchorage, AK (73,840)
\n3. San Francisco, CA (68,667)
\n4. Seattle, WA (65,080)
\n5. Raleigh, NC (64,908)
\n6. Virginia Beach, VA (60,926)
\n7. Honolulu, HI (60,618)
\n8. San Diego, CA (59,818)
\n9. Arlington, TX (58,924)
\n10. Charlotte, NC (58,116)
\n11. Minneapolis, MN (57,164)
\n12. Colorado Springs, CO (55,554)
\n13. Austin, TX (55,488)
\n14. Oakland, CA (54,333)
\n15. Washington, DC (54,193)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A reader asked that I expand on the earlier post about\u00c2 the poorest\u00c2 counties and richest cities in the US. \u00c2 His question was really good, so I went back and looked at the data (since I collected it months … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics-and-the-like"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}