[StBernard] Gap Between Richest and Poorest Counties Widens

Westley Annis westley at da-parish.com
Fri Apr 3 09:17:35 EDT 2009


Gap Between Richest and Poorest Counties Widens
Friday, April 03, 2009 IRS records from 2007 show that the gap between the
U.S.'s rich and the poor is widening significantly, judging from the
difference between rich and poor counties' adjusted gross incomes (AGI) and
average salaries. Goochland County, Virginia, at the top of the AGI list,
has an AGI of $137,045, which is 13.8 times the AGI of St. Bernard Parish,
Louisiana, the county at the bottom of the list. However, St. Bernard Parish
is still recovering from Hurricane Katrina in 2006, so it is at an unusual
disadvantage. But Goochland County still has an AGI 7.76 times larger than
the county with the next lowest AGI: Jackson County, South Dakota. Either
way, this is a huge increase from 2006, when Fairfield County, Connecticut's
AGI was only 5.3 times the AGI of Hayes County, Nebraska. The five counties
with the highest AGIs were the same as in 2006; they were Goochland County,
VA, Teton County, WY, Fairfield County, CT, Falls Church City, VA, and Marin
County, CA. The five lowest AGI's were found in St. Bernard Parish, LA,
Jackson County, SD, Hayes County, NE, Buffalo County, SD, and Keya Paha, NE.
All of these counties, except for St. Bernard Parish, contain Indian
reservations.


In the same way, the difference between the counties with the highest
average salary and lowest average salary is also increasing steadily. In
2007, the difference of $70,420 had a 4.7% increase from 2006, between the
lowest average salary in Petroleum County, MT at $13,671 per year and the
highest in Loudon County, VA at $80,122 per year. In 2006, the difference
was $67,229 between Petroleum County, MT and Hunterdon County, NJ.



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