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Archive 1

Where are the figures coming from, US Census data? It should be clear, also should there be a link to an external site (perhaps census.gov) to confirm the information?

I have found a good source for updating the median household income statistics from the U.S. Census website. 69.48.37.58 07:44, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

This is supposed to be a list of counties. There are several entires in this list that are not counties. Specifically, Falls Church, VA; the city of Alexandria, VA; and the city of Fairfax, VA (not to be confused with Fairfax County, VA) Mingramh ( talk) 13:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The Census Bureau considers an Independent city such as those mentioned to be county level.-- Old Guard ( talk) 09:58, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

"NOTE: FAIRFAX IS LISTED TWICE (#2 & 23)-- A MISTAKE?" -- Cities in Virginia are independent of any county, therefore Fairfax, although it is the county seat of Fairfax County, is not statistically part of the county and is hence treated as a "county equivalent" in many lists.

So which one is Fairfax City? It should be listed as Fairfax City and not Fairfax County.

Oakland County, Michigan is also on the list twice. What a mess.

The U.S. Census Bureau has put out new figures and Fairfax County is now the richest county. [ [1]] -[ [2]]

Fairfax "richest" of largest U.S. counties, not overall.

I added a "Last Update" field to the bottom of each section. This article does deal with dated material and I think its important to know from when the information was accurate.

Hey, I just checked the Fairfax Country website and posted the updated median income.

WOW Los Alamos's med. house hold income is 93,089 The list needs updating!

The numbers are incosistent with the Richest Places in Connecticut Article. When the list is updated, all these other articles that get information from it need to be updated also. SandBoxer 02:10, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

First of all I think it would be useful to provide the information as to where the data is coming from and what it is dated as, it looks like it comes from the 2000 census, the way it is given makes it look as if it were current. Some metropolitan areas were better off in 2000 than today (adjusted for inflation), notably San Jose and Denver areas. It may give the reader a better idea if it the date for the data were provided, afterall I don't know the rakings now, but I would give these less weight if I knew they were from 2000 as opposed to 2004 or 05.

Second point I wanted to make was that having the population data might also be useful, that way one could see if the county is just a rich enclave in the metropolitan area, or if the metropolitan area just has high incomes on average. JVittes 13:40, 17 March 2006 (EST)

I think that the only acceptable data at this time should be the 2000 Census, because that is by huge margin the most commonly reported demographic source for American places across Wikipedia. Presumably this will change after the 2010 Census data is released. It's also probably the most complete source, and the easiest source to get consistent information from, e.g. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/ and thus is a better alternative to a hodge-podge of preliminary income updates, media sources, etc., all with different dates. Lakester10 09:22, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

What on earth does this mean? What is the source of this statement? john k 23:58, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Where did the data come from for this, it seems rather incomplete, Douglas County, CO, Loudon County, VA, and Los Alamos County, NM would seem to have dropped off the face of the earth, or suffered either a major economic downturn, a flight of wealthy people leaving, or a major influx of lower income earners moving into the counties, those seem rather unlikely, I'm not talking small numbers here, they would have to drop from a median of 80k+ to less than $50,127, all three of them; Is there a source?? -- JVittes 05:19, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

As mentioned earlier the Data Set: 2004 American Community Survey does not include all counties, and this page does, unless there is further discussion I will revert the page soon. User:65.196.96.18 's unwillingness to discuss, and just make changes as he or she pleases is making maintanance of this page troublesome. I would like a consensus as to what should be here if at all possible, I vote for the 2000 census as it is the last complete data set. -- JVittes 14:56, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

See http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet?_lang=en&_ts=170762712081&_ds_name=ACS_2004_EST_G00_&_program= to see what I mean. The ACS exclusion of "low population" counties (those under 250k) is explicitly mentioned -- JVittes 15:08, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

What I assume is Westchester County, NY shows up twice on this list. There are no references listed; anyone know what is correct? Solenoid 20:09, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

This data does not come from the Census, it comes from the Bureau of Economic Analysis--see http://www.bea.gov/regional/bearfacts/countybf.cfm . They have data for each year up to 2005 currently, but I would not be surprised if the figures reported for each place were inconsistent. And certainly the first Westchester County entry is quite erroneous no matter what year is used--vandalism I guess. I'll change that after I know what year to shoot for. Lakester10 02:09, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

For now, I made sure the top ten of the list were more or less aligned by the 2000 data, because they mostly were already (many of them were slightly off in such a way that did not correspond to any year, but closest to 2000 data). In the process I discovered a few others that were way off (possibly vandalism?) compared any recent year of the bea.gov data. In short, this particular section needs a lot of work--I recommend that the entire list is updated to the 2005 BEA data eventually. Lakester10 23:35, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

If this page only lists counties or independent cities, then McLean, VA has no business here. It is an unincorporated community within Fairfax County, and therefore its statistics are incorporated into Fairfax, which already appears. McLean is different than Arlington, VA, which is both a county and a city (conterminously, like DC) and Alexandria, which is an independent Virginia city that belongs to no county (like Richmond and Petersburg). McLean is much more normal: It's just an unincorporated place within a county.

FYI, you could have figured this out simply by clicking on the McLean link and noticing that it's an "unincorporated community" within Fairfax County.

Jlevy 07:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

71.126.130.204 added it for some reason, with completely made up numbers this page is always being vandalized, the numbers will have to be checked against the source again from scratch to fix it. I'm afraid that is more work than I can devote to this, if anyone can volunteer to do it that would be great, otherwise we should just say that this page is beyond repair at this point. The individual edits by "anonymous" users usually involve changing one or two digits and swapping counties, it would be hard to track down everything from the history, going to the source would be best. There should perhaps be a disclaimer at the top saying that due to constant vandalism the accuracy of the data is in doubt. -- JVittes 01:12, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Please use the Wikipedia Templates available for marking factual inaccuracies instead of leaving arbitrary notes within the article itself. The templates are available at WP:Templates. Thank you. ( Bjorn Tipling 16:12, 21 January 2007 (UTC))

Also, Falls Church is not a county. Fairfax County is. Is this what is meant? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.232.158.52 ( talk) 00:13, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

The data is no longer correct, the first place for 2000 census Douglas County, CO is no longer in the list. If you're working from the 2005 data Loudon County, VA is 1st, second is Fairfax County, VA, and the values are ~98k, then ~94.5k, and so on, so if there is a source for this data then tell me so, or fix it, or leave the tag there, because as it is, it is just a false page as far as I know. -- JVittes 23:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't see why Prince William County is special within the article. So, I moved it out of the intro.-- Theblackgecko 03:44, 24 April 2007 (UTC) Here is the line if anyone thinks it needs to be back in - "According to the Washington Business Journal, Prince William County ranks as the seventh wealthiest county in the nation. The average houshold income exceeds $91,000."-- Theblackgecko 03:46, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I have assembled an updated list of the top 50 counties in personal per capita income using this BEA.gov source. The current data is mostly based off of the 2000 numbers, with many errors and inconsistencies (vandalism in some cases, probably). I believe that, unlike with the per capita income and median household income, it is appropriate to use the 2005 data. The BEA updates all counties annually, whereas the other two don't seem to do this; also, until the 2010 census the most common data source on Wikipedia place articles is the 2000 Census data.

I intend to wait a while to see if there are any objections, and if not I will update the personal per capita section with the 2005 data. Lakester10 ( T | C ) 08:22, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

-- The current numbers listed in the 2005 chart do not match the 2005 numbers from the BEA chart. I am not sure if it is vandalism or what. From what I see on BEA, here is the 2005 top five per-capita:

$100,904 Teton, WY $100,186 New York, NY $ 81,185 Loving, TX $ 81,140 Pitkin, CO $ 79,688 Marin, CA

The section is currently marked as disputed. Someone better at table editing could redo the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RunDogRun ( talk • contribs) 04:26, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I have removed the two tags that were previously attached to the median household income list (Data does not match 2000 Census, and Data is out of date, update to 2003). For reasons discussed earlier, I believe the 2000 is the only appropriate data at this time. As stated, all the interim American Community Surveys are only partial datasets, whereas these lists include all counties; the 2000 Census appears to be the last total dataset. Also, it's convention to use 2000 Census data for median household income in the articles for each of these places.

I'm not sure if every figure is accurate to 2000 data, but I plan on fixing erroneous entries when I see them, and anyone should be able to do the same, using the 2000 Census source as provided in the article. Lakester10 ( T | C ) 03:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

User talk:69.116.227.101 updated or randomized many entries. I undid much of his/her recent edits in other articles, but was unable to follow changes here back to a point where I was certain things were OK. If the lead paragraph saying that the data is from the 2000 Census is meaningful, then almost every edit after the original data was imported has to be suspect, it seems to me. If there is an "official" list of this data, I suggest that it be reimported, or at least checked. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hjal ( talk • contribs) 05:23, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

There is an updated ranking for 2006 at http://www.bea.gov/regional/reis/pcpihigh.cfm. I would do it myself but I would probably just mess up the tables since I don't understand the coding.  :) Neutron ( talk) 17:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Something is fishy here.

Take San Mateo County, California, for example. From census.gov:

1999 Per Capita Income $36,045; 1999 Median Household Income $70,819

2006 Per Capita Income $40,051; 2006 Median Household Income $77,914

2006 per capita personal income, from bea.gov: $66,839

I don't see any good reason why BEA per capita income should be almost 70% higher than census per capita income. -- Itinerant1 ( talk) 03:50, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Census and BEA also have significant disagreements concerning total incomes of this county (as well as many others). For 2006, census.gov gives $28 billion, BEA gives $46 billion. -- Itinerant1 ( talk) 04:04, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The Census and BEA gather their data from different sources, and use different metrics. The figures listed from the BEA are not to be directly compared to the ones from the Census, but taken together they can give a broader view of per capita income. See page 3 here for a brief comparison of methodology. Lakester10 ( T | C ) 06:14, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Loving County Texas - Info needs review - Esp as listed in Top 50 Highest Income Counties -- 63.99.25.227 ( talk) 13:18, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the wikipedia article for Loving County directly contradicts the information listed on the table. 71.112.17.150 ( talk) 06:40, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.