No sooner had I written “fat cats reside in Loudoun” was it forever deleted from an attempt at print publication. The news of Forbes Magazine’s list of America’s Top 25 richest counties has brought up the topic in the newsroom and beyond—How did Loudoun make the top of this list? Are we really the wealthiest?

Well, I say, the name of the list says “richest counties,” so it must be so. However, when lists are thrown around like this without any context, it’s hard to believe. You’re telling me that Star Island in Miami—home to Shaquille O’Neal and other “fat cats,” or NYC,—with its expanse of investment bankers didn’t beat out Loudoun? Here’s what I can conjecture:

1. This list is compiled from median income, not average. They took the sequence of Loudoun’s salaries from the poorest to the richest man in the land and found the middle number. They didn’t add up all the salaries to find an average, perhaps this is why.

2. Secondly, we have “poor” people living here… by “poor” I mean those who make far less, less than half or less than half of half of the $110,000 median. There’s been discussion on my story about teachers salaries—at a time when schools budgets are already being questioned—as well as Loudoun’s high tax rates, as some say. 

3. Proximity to the federal government. I know a lot of people in Loudoun, and a lot of them don’t work for the federal government—most of those people live in Fairfax and Arlington counties. Again, doesn’t add up.

In the future, I’m going to look at the definition of “wealthiest.” There was a question that “wealthiest” or “richest” used in an editorial context. But, Forbes, the Washington Business Journal, WTOP.com and the Examiner all threw around the terms with the findings and didn’t explain why or how.

Which leads me to beg the question, are we really the wealthiest of all?