From Forbes:
| Rank | County | State | Median Household Income |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Loudoun County | Virginia | |
| 2 | Howard County | Maryland | |
| 3 | Fairfax County | Virginia | |
| 4 | Hunterdon County | New Jersey | |
| 5 | Arlington County | Virginia | |
| 6 | Stafford County | Virginia | |
| 7 | Putnam County | New York | |
| 8 | Somerset County | New Jersey | |
| 9 | Douglas County | Colorado | |
| 10 | Morris County | New Jersey | |
| 11 | Montgomery County | Maryland | |
| 12 | Prince William County | Virginia | |
| 13 | Nassau County | New York | |
| 14 | Santa Clara County | California | |
| 15 | Charles County | Maryland |
Prince William County is #12. That’s not too shabby. Half the households make more than $93,744 annually and half make less. Loudoun, of course, puts us to shame with a top median household income of nearly $118,000 per year.
Unfortunately, Prince William is at the bottom of the heap when it comes down to what is spent per pupil in the school system. It also has low teacher pay, comparatively speaking. Stafford ranks above us. Remember the old days when we could look down our respective noses at them? Ha! The tide has turned.
If Prince William County continues to go on the cheap, their rank will continue to drop. The higher paid earners will move to more prestigious counties who invest more in their schools. They can afford to do so.
That begs the question, what will become of Prince William County. Well….look around. Check out the daily crime report. Look at the areas where these crimes are being committed. Crime is also slithering out to Bristow and Gainesville. That’s what happens when you go on the cheap. Cheap isn’t good. All sorts of ne’er-do-wells come in looking for cheap. That isn’t what we want or need.
Tomorrow the CXO will present her budget based on 1.3% increase, a far cry from the 4% increased laid out in the 5 year plan. Let’s see how this is going to work out.
Supervisors, stop always working about appealing to your base. Set a plan and stick with it. Stop operating on the cheap. Look at Prince William County’s rank in affluency. That rank would go up if there weren’t so many people pulling the numbers down. Who are these people? Low wage earners who are looking for cheap.
Cheap isn’t going to bring you the best teachers, the best first responders, the best anything. Money isn’t everything but when Prince William refuses to invest in itself, then who will invest in it?
More affluent people are skipping PWC and continuing down 95 to Stafford?
And Loudoun,.
More affluent people are moving to Loudoun. Businesses are not going to move here anymore, the jobs are to the north. The schools are going downhill and that will affect housing prices. I blame Stewart, but Candland and Lawson are only going to make it worse. Ultimately I blame the people who vote but I guess that’s how a lot of people feel who are in skewed districts. I see no end in sight. What a cheerful start to the day.
On the hand, 12th out of approximately 2000 counties in the US is pretty affluent. [expletive left out]. I think Candland’s rhetoric about people struggling is just to further his radical fiscal conservatism. Or his cohort’s. By the time people wake up to this fact it will be too late for the county.
I find his rhetoric about people “struggling” to just be plain old offensive. People struggled after the crash when the foreclosures were hitting on every street because their houses were under water. It makes me suck air to think that people living in half million dollar houses and more are “struggling.” there is a cure for that. Downsize.
Additionally, it is a self fulfilling prophecy. Refusal to invest in schools depreciates housing.
Candland and Lawson need a different advisor, in my opinion. What they are espousing is radical. Candland also sees himself as having some sort of jurisdiction over the schools.
Watching, you are right. It might just be getting too late for the county.
There may be a parallel here. Consider a mobile home for a minute. Many consider mobile homes as affordable housing. However, mobile homes are not real property and their value decreases over time just like your car. They are anything but affordable since the owner’s wealth decreases.
Now consider Prince William County for a minute. Many consider Prince William County as an affordable place to live. The value of a community is made up of businesses, people, jobs, infrastructure and hope for the future. Prince William is competing with neighboring jurisdictions for those jobs, businesses and affluent people. If a County fails to invest in jobs, people and businesses it becomes less and less affordable just as in mobile homes. You don’t know that it is happening because your mobile home is well maintained, but it is happening.
In order to attract new industry, a jurisdiction needs an educated workforce… in order to attract an educated workforce, a county needs a good school system and good housing…in order to have a good school system, a county needs to increase spending on schools.
Being 12th in the nation is great but being last in the DC Metro area is terrible.
BS said:
It seriously is terrible! That means every business is going to choose you last. That means every teacher is going to choose you last. That means every new homebuyer is going to choose you last.
Then there are pockets of affluence further south on our south and western borders.. Warrenton and Culpeper are up and coming enclaves of people who want more for less.
There is also the belief that, even though our relative tax burden per capita is one of the lowest in the region, people will want to move here if taxes are even lower. This is at the crux of the fallacy of the argument Candland and other radically fiscal conservatives put forth. There are no studies that support that lower taxes and fewer government services make an area and it’s housing attractive. Usually it’s driven by the quality of the schools, neighborhood amenities, commuting times and safety. That is all lost in the rhetoric by people like Candland. I suspect it’s pure ignorance, at least I’m hoping that’s what it is and not some underlying malice.
One again, wonder boy gets to play most conservative while the others man up and behave responsibly. He can just keep shaking his head and protest without having to really do anything but talk and duck behind a blog.
Today’s outcome 3% @6-2.
Watching – that is what Moon and others have been saying here for a long time…..cheap, cheap, cheap just results in decreased quality. I’m torn between ignorance and malice – I suspect he’s being used for those with a personal axe to grind. The key word in your comment is ‘radical’ – conservative or liberal it only results in damages; I used to think it help achieve some moderate outcome, but no longer think that.
We have a higher median income in Loudoun because we price the poor out. The poor move to PW or Frederick and more likely West Virginia and commute in for our low paying jobs. The people who live here commute to Fairfax for the high paying jobs. Of course this is some statistical slight of hand. If you broke Fairfax into 5 Loudoun/PW sized parcels two of them would likely have the top median incomes. (E.g. Great Falls & Mclean, Falls Church.)
Feelings of wealth are relative. When nearly every neighbor has a household income above 100k it is hard to feel rich even when one’s household income is in the top 5% of the country.
Exactly. It’s relative. That is what burns me when I read on some blogs about no tax negative homes. That truly is elitism on a level I find unacceptable as a county plan. That ends up really pricing your younger families right out of the market. (hmmm fewer school children)
Then your jurisdiction becomes run by the wealthy and the old codgers with some bucks.
Some vision of Prince William County. Price ’em right out of the market? Well, that’s not going to happen.
Watching: You’re right. Lower taxes don’t bring people into a community. Well, not middle class people anyway. The people who benefit from lower taxes but could still afford to live in a place with little government help are the very rich.
The very rich, and their ilk, build their fortune on the backs of the taxes paid before them and then turn to everyone else and say “You too can be rich as long as taxes are kept low.”
You can save your $15 a month by not following the 4% increase in the five year plan. That’s fine. But you’ll burn right through that $15 by burning up gas sitting on overcrowded roads and having to pay out of pocket for basic school needs for your children.
The conservative view of more, more, more for less, less, less is tired. Here’s the standard speech:
“Government should do (something that costs money). Government should also do (something that costs money). But what government should not do is raise taxes.”
They want to pretend that all the money we need can be found in “waste”. During the special election debate with Lawson, Young and Jacobs this is exactly the formula that Lawson followed. Don’t believe me. Go back and listen to her top priorities from that debate. She fits the formula to a tea (intentional misspelling).
Take the only declared candidate for the School Board At-large position. In his campaign kickoff he stated that his priorities were 1) Classroom size reduction, 2) More responsive and accountable government, and 3) Safe and healthy learning environment for children and teachers.
As you might of guessed, he wants all three of those things without a tax increase.
Their mantra has run its course and it is coming to an end.
Its like trying to create something out of air. I get tired of it.
If I were a PWC employee, I would be very tired of it all. They are continually told what POS’s they are without any of the supervisors coming to their rescue, defending them, etc.
More is asked out of them and no one values them. Shame on the Supervisors and shame on us for allowing it to happen.
I live in Eastern Loudoun and I have never felt wealthy. There are two Loudouns.
I live in Gainesville District and I certainly have never felt wealthy either.
STAFFORD beat PWC in household income? Who knew! I think Ed is on the right track, though, this has a lot to do with demographic areas, and neither Loudon or Stafford have large semi-urban areas like PWC does, and this affects the average.
I’m glad to see that many folks have come to the conclusion that the austerity budget has run its course. That doesn’t have to mean higher (residential property) taxes, but it does mean changing the paradigm as to where the government funding comes from. As Moon writes, new homes under a certain value are tax-negative, so we need to address that and other areas where new development doesn’t pay its fair share. We also need more commercial tax base- not cheap retail, but quality office and business. PWC has been a bedroom community for too long, it’s time to move forward and take some of the load off the residential property owner. PWC is blessed in location, topography, available workforce, historical and environmental features, and safety. We need to be smart and capitalize on our strengths so we can afford world-class schools and services.
I mean we’re right in between two of the fastest-growng employers in the country- Quantico and Fort Belvoir- whyl et all the employment go to Fairfax, Alexandria and Arlington?
We won’t as long as the cheap bastards in my district try to live high on the hog and not pay their fair share.
I am tired of hearing them piss and moan. I am retired and am more than willing to pay my fair share. If it comes to a point where I find myself eating dog food I will move to a less expensive location.
I would say that most of Eastern Loudoun between Sterling and Leesburg has become “semi-urban” and will become even more so as developments like Loudoun One are finished and even more commercial and residential development follows the arrival of the Metro Silver Line at Dulles Airport and Ashburn. Most schools in Sterling Park are now majority new immigrant, largely Hispanic. In the early 1980’s, I could stand on a hilltop in Sterling Park and see almost nothing but trees between there and Leesburg. Now I see mostly roof tops.
I used to love to go out Gum Springs Road when it snowed. I would take a left of Old Braddock and look at red foxes, beaver, horses in pastures. It was beautiful. Now, not so much. Its all gone.