Placer, El Dorado among nation's 50 wealthiest counties Income, home prices, education all go into formula to figure affluence
By G. Scott Thomas of The Sacramento Business Journal
Friday, November 2, 2007
Many of the region’s monied households are in places such as Serrano in El Dorado Hills.
View Larger Placer County's deep-pocketed residents can enjoy a little chest-thumping, fist-pumping and even some Rolex-flashing, at least when it comes to their wealth.
The county finished at No. 43 among the nation's 100 wealthiest suburbs, according to a report released this week. El Dorado County was No. 44.
More than one of every 20 residents earn at least $200,000 per year in El Dorado and Placer counties, according to a report by Bizjournals, a sister company of the Business Journal.
Bizjournals created a nine-part formula to determine the relative affluence of 291 suburban counties, seeking the places with the highest incomes, most expensive houses, lowest poverty levels, strongest educational backgrounds, and most extensive ownership of stocks, rental properties and vehicles.
Placer County had per-capita income of $35,014 per year, but more high-income residents -- 6.8 percent earn at least $200,000 per year -- help increase the rankings. In addition, only 3.8 percent of the county's residents live below the poverty level. And one of every 10 homes has at least nine rooms, from bedrooms to game rooms, according to the report.
El Dorado County also fared well, with 5.9 percent of residents earning $200,000 or more per year, offsetting the $32,122 per-capita income. Less than 4 percent of the county's residents live below the poverty level. But bigger homes are less common, with 8 percent of the homes featuring at least nine rooms.
Big Apple 'burbs
Placer and El Dorado counties are the wealthiest -- and only -- Sacramento-area communities listed on the report, but they pale compared to the rolling hills of northern New Jersey, where dozens of upscale suburbs sprawl within 70 miles of New York City.
All of these havens may consider themselves unique and autonomous, but economist Joseph Seneca views them as a cohesive region. The "wealth belt," he calls it.
The name is appropriate. Almost a million people live in the region's three richest counties -- Hunterdon, Somerset and Morris -- where the income levels are 70 percent above the national average.
"It's an area of high incomes, high housing costs and high quality of life," said Seneca, a Rutgers University professor. "It has become an economic mass of real significance."
Similar "wealth belts" can be found in major metropolitan areas from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco. The nation's 100 richest suburban counties, taken as a group, are home to 46 million people whose combined income -- $1.6 trillion per year -- would cause any marketer to salivate.
At the very top of the list, rated by Bizjournals as America's wealthiest suburban county, is Hunterdon County, N.J. Fifteen percent of Hunterdon's households have annual incomes of $200,000 or more, which is 4.5 times the national rate of 3.4 percent.
Second place belongs to Fairfax County, Va., a high-tech hub near Washington, D.C. It has a highly educated, well-paid work force. Six of every 10 Fairfax adults have college degrees, and 15.2 percent of the county's households are in the $200,000-plus income range.
Better than most
The rest of the top 10 consists of two more counties from New Jersey, two from Maryland, and one each from California, Colorado, Connecticut and Virginia.
The 100 counties on Bizjournals' master list easily outstrip the national standard of living, no matter which indicator is used:
Their collective per-capita income is $35,275, 40 percent above the U.S. figure of $25,267.
Eight percent of all households in these wealthy suburbs have annual incomes of $200,000 or more. The national rate is 3.4 percent.
Big homes are much more common in the top 100 counties, where 14.7 percent of all houses have at least nine rooms. The U.S. average is 8.1 percent.
The correlation between income and education is strong, so it's no surprise that the proportion of adults with college degrees is higher in the wealthiest counties: 40.3 percent compared with 27.0 percent for the entire nation.
Wealthiest counties
1. Hunterdon, N.J.
2. Fairfax, Va.
3. Fairfield, Conn.
4. Howard, Md.
5. Loudoun, Va.
6. Montgomery, Md.
7. Somerset, N.J.
8. Morris, N.J.
9. Marin
10. Douglas, Colo.