Here’s a story to warm the hearts of struggling taxpayers around the nation. Washington, DC, is one of the few spots in the nation where income is climbing. According to the Wall Street Journal, “Personal income in 42 states fell in 2009, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Nevada’s 4.8% plunge was the steepest, as construction and tourism industries took a beating. Also hit hard: Wyoming, where incomes fell 3.9%. Incomes stayed flat in two states and rose in six and the District of Columbia.” Serfs in flyover country will also be delighted to learn that a new survey finds that a majority of America’s 10-richest communities are now suburbs of Washington, DC. To be fair, not all of the wealth in places such as Loudoun County is because of a bloated and overpaid bureaucracy. Some of it is because of the fat-cat lobbyists who work with the bureaucrats to funnel your tax dollars to special interest groups. I’m not sure if that will make you feel better, but here are the details from the Forbes survey:
…most Americans still aren’t ready to brag about their paychecks. Except, perhaps, in Loudoun County, Va., where median household incomes are higher than anywhere else in the country. This affluent suburb of Washington, D.C., where families take home a median $110,643 annually, tops our list of America’s 25 richest counties. …It’s not surprising that workers in Loudoun do well. The federal government generates a wealth of jobs, keeping unemployment in the D.C. metro area at a low 6.2% (the national average is still near 10%). The best-paid workers from D.C. take their money home to Loudoun, where jobs have grown 4% between the second quarter of 2007 and the second quarter of 2009… Like Loudoun, a number of the country’s wealthiest households are tightly concentrated in counties around the nation’s capital. Six of the richest counties lie on the outskirts of Washington: Fairfax County, Va., Arlington County, Va., Stafford County, Va., Prince William County, Va., Charles County, Md., and Alexandria City, Va.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/04/america-richest-counties-lifestyle-real-estate-wealthy-suburbs.html
