A study just released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the US Department of Commerce shows Midland, Texas as having the second-highest per capita income of any American metropolitan area.
Midland residents’ average personal income was $65,173 in 2011, or roughly $20,000 more than the $41,560 average for U.S. metropolitan areas.
Bridgeport, Conn., which includes the wealthy Greenwich area, ranked as the richest metro area in the country. Residents’ personal income per capita was $78,504 in 2011, the study found.
San Francisco, San Jose and Washington, D.C., rounded out the top five.
Texas looks pretty good on the income growth map below, but other Texas cities didn’t fare as well in the per capita income race; Houston was ranked 27th with an average of $47,612, according to the study. Dallas came in at 52 and San Antonio at 181. The McAllen/Edinburg/Mission area was on the bottom of the list, with personal income of $21,620 per year.
Speaking of income growth, the Midland-Odessa area showed a personal income growth rate of 14.6%
All of this information is pretty straightforward and easy to understand, so I find it amusing (and a little annoying) that the East Coast Elitists at The Atlantic felt it was necessary to explain.
The magazine wrote Midland’s second-place finish “is a geological one: The small city and its big wages are at the mercy of their natural resources and the globally-determined price of energy.” While New York, San Francisco, San Jose and Boston have high wages because “productive, innovative and well-educated people work and live there without the benefit of natural resources.”
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