Well in terms of job $$ :happysad:

Highest paying jobs are in the East

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

WASHINGTON -- The East Coast may be losing residents to states in the South and West, but many of the high-paying jobs have stayed behind.

The states with the highest wage earners line the East Coast, while there are many pockets of wealth in the South and West, according to Census data released Tuesday.

Connecticut, with a median household income of $56,409, supplanted New Jersey as the country's highest wage state in 2003, the most recent year available. New Jersey slid to second, at $56,356, followed by Maryland, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Mississippi had the lowest median income, at $32,397. West Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana and Montana rounded out the bottom five.

The median household income for the nation was $43,318.

Census figures show that Southern and Western states have been growing in population much faster than those in the Northeast and Midwest.

But despite those population shifts, the list of wealthiest - and poorest - states in 2003 looks a lot like the list from a decade before.

"You're going to see those areas - Mississippi, Appalachia - those are just characteristically, throughout history, poorer areas," said David Waddington, chief of the Census Bureau's small area estimates branch.

The wage gap among counties was even more pronounced than the one for states.

Los Alamos County in New Mexico, home of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, had the nation's highest median income, at $93,089. It was followed by Douglas County in Colorado and Loudoun County in northern Virginia.

Buffalo County in South Dakota, home of the Crow Creek Indian Reservation, had the lowest, at $17,003. It was followed by Owsley County in Kentucky and Ziebach County, also in South Dakota.

Most of the wealthiest counties were suburban, and nearly all the poorest ones were rural.

"This is a reflection of a poverty problem in non-metro areas," said Dean Jolliffe, an economist at the Department of Agriculture. "These are areas where there really isn't any economic development going on."

Jolliffe tracks "persistent poverty" counties, ones in which at least 20 percent of the population have lived below the poverty level for at least 30 years. There were 386 persistent poverty counties in 2000, and 340 were outside metropolitan areas.

None were in the Northeast. Most were in the South.

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On The Net:

U.S. Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/saipe/index.html

 

The richest and poorest
• Counties and states with the highest and lowest median incomes in 2003, as calculated by the U.S. Census Bureau:
COUNTIES
Top 10
County Income
Los Alamos County, N.M. $93,089
Douglas County 92,732
Loudoun County, Va. 89,890
Hunterdon County, N.J. 84,016
Fairfax County, Va. 82,481
Hamilton County, Ind. 80,691
Morris County, N.J. 79,977
Howard County, Md. 79,455
Somerset County, N.J. 77,988
Montgomery County, Md. 76,546
Bottom 10
County Income
Wilcox County, Ala. $19,524
Hancock County, Tenn. 19,228
Starr County, Texas 19,127
Holmes County, Miss. 19,057
Clay County, Ky. 18,724
Zavala County, Texas 18,553
McDowell County, W.Va. 18,344
Ziebach County, S.D. 17,753
Owsley County, Ky. 17,344
Buffalo County, S.D. 17,003
STATES
Top 10
State Income
Conn. $56,409
N.J. 56,356
Md. 54,302
Mass. 52,713
N.H. 52,409
Alaska 52,391
Minn. 50,750
Va. 50,028
Colo. 49,248
Del. 48,770
Bottom 10
State Income
Tenn. $37,925
Ky. 36,663
Ala. 36,131
Okla. 35,634
N.M. 35,091
Mont. 34,449
La. 33,792
Ark. 33,445
W.Va. 32,967
Miss. 32,397

 

damn, PA didn't make any of the top lists :happysad:

 

Suprised to see Alaska there.

 

damn McDowell county is in the sticks man....

The household income is coming up in WV thank goodness, with all the federal jobs that are coming in, things are looking up rather quickly for the North Central area....

 

woo hoo. morris county is on the list. now why do i feel so poor.

 

Sure we get paid more but we also have to pay more. Everything in the northeast is freaking expensive.

 

:werd: I was surprised by that too. Even if they get a couple thousand from alaska oil every year, I still cant figure out where the money's coming from.

 

Ah yes, NH made the Top 5. :grinpimp:

 

New Jersey > *