Santa Clara Is The Richest County In California

In today’s modern world, there are such realities as $7 cups of coffee, designer clothing on dogs and people spending inordinate amounts of money on services that rarely justify the cost.

And while we’re not all living this lavish lifestyle, a new report suggests you might find this type of spending in Santa Clara County, which was just named the richest county in California and the fifth richest in the United States.

The typical Santa Clara County household rakes in about $116,178 a year, according to the report published in January by the financial news and opinion site 24/7 Wall St.

Here’s other information on the richest county in California:

Poverty rate: 7.9 percent (California: 14.3 percent)
October 2019 unemployment: 2.2 percent (California: 3.9 percent)
Adults with a bachelor’s degree: 51.3 percent (California: 33.3 percent)
Largest city in the county: San Jose

Across the country, the typical household in the wealthiest counties earned between $61,000 and $136,000 a year, with Loudoun County, Virginia, coming in as the wealthiest in the nation.

The top five richest counties in the country were rounded out by Howard County, Maryland ($117,730); Douglas County, Colorado ($115,314); and Los Alamos County, New Mexico ($115,248).

At the other end of the spectrum, Arizona’s Maricopa County had the lowest median income of the wealthiest counties at $61,606. Still, the median household income in Maricopa County was close to $5,000 higher than in the rest of the state.

To determine the richest county in each state, 24/7 Wall St. looked through the median annual household incomes for each U.S. county using five-year estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2018 American Community Survey.

The full methodology and report are available at 24/7 Wall St.