Median Household Income by County: The Highest and Lowest in America

The national median household income is $82,259, according to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (2020-2024). That's the middle of the country. Half of all households earn more, half earn less. But the national number hides just how far apart the richest and poorest counties really are. At the top, a typical household pulls in more than $180,000 a year. At the bottom, it's under $38,000. Same country, same currency, same census form.

This post lays out both ends of that range, county by county, and looks at what the geography tells you. If you've ever typed "median household income for Fairfax County" into a search bar, you're not alone. It's one of the most-searched county income questions in the country, which is part of why a list like this is worth putting in one place.

The highest-income counties in America

The top of the list isn't spread evenly across the map. It clusters in two places: the suburbs of Washington, DC, and the tech corridor around the San Francisco Bay. Those two regions account for most of the top ten, and they got there by very different routes.

Loudoun County, Virginia sits at the top with a median household income of $181,765. That's a county of about 449,749 people on the western edge of the DC metro. The wealth here runs on government contracting, the data-center industry, and the federal payroll that radiates out from Washington. Loudoun has held the number-one spot for years, and the gap between it and everywhere else is part of why.

Right behind it come the Bay Area counties. Santa Clara County, California, the heart of Silicon Valley, has a median income of $164,281 across a population of 1,914,391. San Mateo County is close behind at $158,855. This is tech money, concentrated and visible in the housing costs that come with it.

Then it's back to the DC suburbs. Fairfax County, Virginia ($153,637, population 1,167,873) and Howard County, Maryland ($149,763) both anchor the Maryland-Virginia side of the capital region. Fairfax is the one people search for most, probably because it's large, well-known, and a common landing spot for federal and contracting careers.

The rest of the top ten fills in around those two hubs. Douglas County, Colorado ($149,594) and Marin County, California ($149,091) are within a few hundred dollars of each other. Los Alamos County, New Mexico ($147,139) is the outlier, a small county built around a national laboratory, where the workforce skews heavily toward scientists and engineers. Nassau County, New York ($146,202) and Forsyth County, Georgia ($143,784) round out the list, one a long-established Long Island suburb, the other a fast-growing exurb north of Atlanta.

So the short version: government-contracting wealth and tech wealth. Two engines, two regions, and not much else cracking the very top.

The lowest-income counties in America

The bottom of the list is also clustered, but in different places. To keep the comparison fair, this set is limited to counties with populations over 40,000, so we're not comparing a major metro suburb to a county of a few thousand people. Even with that floor, the contrast is stark.

Starr County, Texas has the lowest median household income on this list at $37,639, across a population of 66,067. Starr sits on the Rio Grande, on the Texas-Mexico border, and it's part of a broader pattern. Several of the lowest-income counties in the country run along that border in South Texas.

The rest of the bottom spreads across the rural South and Appalachia. Lincoln Parish, Louisiana comes in at $39,172. Apache County, Arizona is at $41,438, a large county that includes substantial tribal land. Robeson County, North Carolina ($41,978, population 116,902) is in the eastern part of the state, one of the poorer stretches of rural North Carolina.

Washington County, Mississippi ($42,165) sits in the Mississippi Delta, a region that's been near the bottom of income tables for generations. Pike County, Kentucky ($44,312) is deep in Appalachian coal country. And Danville city, Virginia ($44,423) is an old tobacco and textile town that lost much of its manufacturing base.

The pattern here is geographic and historical: the Texas border, the Delta, eastern North Carolina, and the Appalachian coalfields. These are places where the local economy never had a government-contracting boom or a tech sector to lean on.

How big is the gap, really

Here's the number that puts it in perspective. Loudoun's median household income of $181,765 is about 4.8 times Starr County's $37,639. Nearly five to one, between the top and the bottom of the same country.

And both ends sit a long way from the middle. The national median is $82,259. Loudoun is more than twice that. Starr is less than half of it. When you hear "the median American household earns about $82,000," remember that the typical household in some counties earns roughly double, and in others roughly half. The national figure is real, but it's an average of places that don't look much like each other.

One caveat worth keeping in mind: these figures don't adjust for cost of living. A $164,000 income in Santa Clara County buys a very different life than the same income would in most of the country, because housing there is among the most expensive in the nation. High-income counties tend to be expensive counties. The raw median tells you what households earn, not what's left after rent.

If you want to see where your own county lands, you can look it up directly on CensusEasy and compare it against the national median and against any other county. The full ranking of the highest-income counties is the fastest way to see the whole top of the list, and the compare tool lets you put two counties side by side, which is more useful than a single number when you're deciding where to live or just trying to understand your own area. Start with your county, then check the one next door. The differences are usually bigger than people expect.

Sources

Income figures are from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (2020-2024 five-year estimates). For the full county ranking, see the highest-income counties list.