Community Corner
Are Suburban Counties Among Richest in U.S.?
Recent statistics released by the United Census Bureau ranks the richest counties in the country.
Residents living in McHenry, DuPage and Kendall counties have among the highest incomes in the state and country, according to recent statistics released by the United Census Bureau.
But residents living in these counties did not top the census bureau’s list of the top 30 highest-income counties in the United States in 2012, which went to several counties on the east coast including five counties in northern Virginia.
Meanwhile, the median household income for Lake County residents was $74,459 while Grayslake residents had a median household income well above that at $95,067 between 2007 and 2011.
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Falls Church, Virginia, ranked highest on the recent list of the 30 highest-income counties in the country where residents have a median household income of $121,250 while Rockwell County, Texas, rounded off the list with a median income of $85,164.
The data comes from the 2012 Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates program, which provides the only current, single-year income and poverty statistics for all sizes of counties and school districts — roughly 3,140 counties and nearly 14,000 school districts nationally.
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"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.
Meanwhile, a handful of Chicago area counties, including McHenry, Kendall and DuPage counties, were ranked among the top-income counties in the United States, with a range of median household income from around $75,000 to $121,250. Here is how those counties ranked:
- Kendall County: $84,816
- McHenry County: $76,417
- DuPage County: $78,131
- Lake County: $74,459
- Will County: $72,395
- Kane County: $64,870
Meanwhile, the poverty rate in Kendall, DuPage and McHenry counties was among the lowest in the state. Here is how the poverty rate ranked for these suburban counties:
- Kendall County: 5.1 percent
- DuPage County: 7.3 percent
- McHenry County: 7.6 percent
- Lake County: 9.4 percent
- Cook County: 18.1 percent
- Will County: 8.1 percent
- Kane County: 11.9 percent
Five-Year Data on Income
When looking at census bureau data over the past five years, more suburban counties fall under the bureau's current highest-income bracket of over $75,000.
This data shows the average median household income from 2008 to 2012 ranked as follows for suburban counties:
- Kendall County: $83,835
- McHenry County: $77,325
- Lake County: $79,085
- Will County: $76,352
- DuPage County: $78,538
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