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BY ELIZABETH BIRGE
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Five counties in northern New Jersey made the top-50 list of highest per capita income for 2007.
Morris ($71,713), Somerset (70,949), Bergen ($67,125), and Hunterdon ($66,449) counties all made the top 20 while Monmouth County ($54, 801) came in at No. 50 on the list. No. 1 was Teton County, Wyo. ($132,728) and No. 2 was New York County, N.Y. ($120,790), according to a report in northjersey.com.
Couple with the news from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (PDF) that in 2008 New Jersey had the second highest income per capita in the nation ($50,919,), and it looks like people in the state are living large.
But people living in the state know better."The high income numbers grossly overstate our supposed influence," said James W. Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. "A good part of our income advantages are consumed by a higher cost of living."
Indeed, a survey released by the National Association of Home Builders showed that in metro areas with populations of less than 500,000, Ocean City was named the least affordable with the Atlantic City-Hammonton area coming in seventh.
The result, said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC, is a basic inequity.
"The wealthy people drive up housing prices, " he said. "Housing prices reflect average incomes and if you have some very wealthy people, people with more moderate incomes will have a harder times affording housings."
Because of the dramatic economic recession that has affected everything from car dealerships to baseball stadium ticket sales, and the whole sale loss of good-paying jobs in the financial districts of New York and Philadelphia, there are likely to be a lot more people of moderate means.
"All of these high-end workers trickle down and feed some of the middle level and lower level wage earners," said Rich Yamarone, director of economic research at Argus Research. "Now you're cutting them out."
"And then you toss the burden of highest property taxes in the country on top and it's a one-two punch," he said. "You lose your job, you lose your income, you're forced to pay higher taxes. Without being too political, I don't see any favorable or positive way out."
