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Interactive: U.S. Counties by Household Income
With over 3,000 counties in the United States, variance is to be expected.
Geographically speaking, for example, there a wide spectrum of differences between counties. Some are situated in gorgeous mountain settings, while others may be almost entirely flat. There are urban counties that are major population centers, and others that don’t have a skyscraper within 500 miles of them.
Just like with geography, individual counties can also be quite unique when it comes to looking at socioeconomic measurements, such as median household income.
Median Income by County
Today’s interactive infographic comes to us from Overflow Data, and it helps give a sense of the household income spectrum by visualizing data from all U.S. counties.
Some counties, like Loudoun County (Virginia) have sky-high median incomes – in this case, $125,672 per household.
Meanwhile, other places are stuck in much rougher circumstances. For example, just a few hundred miles away is McDowell County (West Virginia), which has a median household income of $25,206.
Highs and Lows
The level of wealth found in a particular county is dependent on a large quantity of factors, including nearby industries, natural resources, demographics, tax rates, education, and available jobs and careers.
As you can see on the map, the most common range for median household income is from $45,000 to $70,000. Simultaneously, however, there are outliers that fall way outside that range for various reasons.
Highest Median Incomes
Here are the five counties with the highest median household incomes in the U.S.:
| Rank | County | Median household income | Population |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Loudoun, Virginia | $125,672 | 362,435 |
| #2 | Fairfax, Virginia | $114,329 | 1,132,887 |
| #3 | Howard, Maryland | $113,800 | 308,447 |
| #4 | Arlington, Virginia | $108,706 | 226,092 |
| #5 | Hunterdon, NJ | $108,177 | 125,708 |
Not surprisingly, four of these five counties are clustered around Washington, D.C., and the other is just over an hour away from Manhattan.
Lowest Median Incomes
Finally, here are the five counties with the lowest median incomes in the country:
| Rank | County | Median household income | Population |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | McCreary, Kentucky | $18,972 | 17,850 |
| #2 | Sumter, Alabama | $20,428 | 13,285 |
| #3 | Holmes, Mississippi | $20,800 | 18,547 |
| #4 | Stewart, Georgia | $20,882 | 5,791 |
| #5 | Lee, Kentucky | $21,185 | 6,896 |
All of these are located in the Southeast, although just missing the top five was Mora County in New Mexico ($21,190). As you can see by the population numbers, these are all very rural places as well.
Want to see more on median household income? See it visualized at the state level.
