For what it’s worth, one of the brightest feathers in Loudoun’s cap is its continual designation as the ‘richest county in the nation.’
The county has held the top spot, intermittently swapping with neighboring Fairfax County, for the past five years. Loudoun’s median household income totals $119,540 followed by Fairfax County with a median income of $103,010; Howard County, Md., at $101,771; Hunterdon County, N.J., ($97,874); and Arlington County, Va., ($94,986).
Loudoun’s median income exceeds that of other localities because of the prevalence of dual-income households and a better job structure, according to Dr. Stephen Fuller, the director of the Center for Regional Analysis at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University. The designation points to the fact that the pay structure in the Washington, D.C., area is generally higher than other areas because the local economy supports more professional and business service jobs and less blue collar industries such as manufacturing.
“The Washington, D.C., area continues to be one of the economically strong regions more so than most other places,” said Ben Mays, deputy director of Loudoun’s Department of Management and Financial Services.
Mays echoed Fuller’s statement that a highly educated workforce, which often translates into high wages, coupled with a high proportion of married or dual-income earners in one household equates to elevated median incomes.
But, Loudoun does not trump counties outside other major metropolitan areas in New York or California in terms of actual wealth. Fuller notes the years-long designation overstates Loudoun’s wealth and “isn’t very meaningful when it comes right down to it.”
For starters, most of the area’s top-paying jobs aren’t earned within the county. The incomes earned by those living in Loudoun are oftentimes culled outside its borders, most likely at jobs based in Fairfax and Arlington counties or Washington, D.C. Loudoun is not home to the largest number of millionaires nor does the designation shed light onto the range of salaries earned, he said.
Instead, the survey more likely reflects the presence of a large, upper-middle class income population with an age structure comprising 30 to 40 year-old workers who seek suburban housing.
Housing in Loudoun is relatively new compared to the rest of the metropolitan area, much of it having been built within the last 15 years. Since 1990, Loudoun has been one of the fastest growing counties in the nation and has homes that are pricier, resulting in hefty mortgages that need to be supported by large salaries, Fuller said. That being said, the average wage of a federal government worker hovers around six figures, he said.
The metropolitan area, including Loudoun, is one of two areas in the nation showing year-to-year increases in home value, Mays said, making Loudoun a “desired quarter of the area where people want to live.” The median home sales price in Loudoun is $447,100 on a one-year estimate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Several sources, including Forbes Magazine and American Community Survey, release similar U.S. Census Bureau data on a bi-annual basis. A report released by the media outlet Main Street Feb. 16 reaffirmed Loudoun as home to the top median income earners while also terming the county as a place where “the 1% live.” The “1%” references those Americans who are in the top one percent of wealth in the nation and is a term used frequently among media outlets to show the growing gap between the rich and poor in America.
Main Street said Loudoun “trounced the competition on the way to becoming the richest county in the nation.” In 2010, the most recent data available, Loudoun’s median household income was more than double that of the nationwide median of $50,046. Virginia’s median household income was $60,674 and the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area’s was $84,523. In the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, the “top 1%” earn $357,000 annually. That’s slightly more than “the top 1%” of income earners nationwide who earned, in adjusted gross income, $343,927 or more in 2009, according to Kiplinger.
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