<p>Will this affect the financial aid pools available to CT residents?</p>
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<p>The richest state keeps getting richer, and Connecticut has passed a major income milestone.</p>
<p>In the first three months of 2007, Connecticut’s total personal income hit a pace of $183 billion a year, or $52,225 for every man, woman and child in the state. </p>
<p>This will be the first year any state has risen above $50,000 in per capita income.</p>
<p>Connecticut passed the benchmark as its tally of personal income grew at a pace of 3.5 percent, even though job gains in the state have been modest, but steady, and population growth has been relatively flat. The reason: financial services and, more specifically, colossal hedge fund wealth in the New Haven-Stamford metropolitan area.</p>
<p>The state’s performance placed it among just five states that saw growth in personal income - wages, investment earnings and rental income - exceed the national average of 2.2 percent, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.</p>
<p>Probably. Unfortunately, high wages in a state/region usually go hand in hand with a higher cost of living. People will end up paying a higher tax bracket and find less need-based aid even if their income to expense ratio is the same as someone in a cheaper state.</p>
<p>Yes, but after you factor in cost of living, Connecticut actually comes out even farther ahead of Silicon Valley, D.C., and other fairly wealthy areas, as well as still significantly ahead of the other places you may be thinking of that are considered to be “cheap” (St. Louis, etc.)</p>
<p>Per capita income is an average and so misrepresents the distribution of income in the state. People with very high incomes raise the average but do not shift the median. There are plenty of rich people in CT, and there are also plenty of poor people.</p>
<p>Yeah, you’re right. I’ve even posted the census data a few times! But I just like to keep reminding people about the best ways to look at income data. </p>
<p>Just wondering…how do you think it would affect “financial aid pools available to CT residents”? Won’t they continue to be under the same rules they were before?</p>
<p>Connecticut is #5 in median household income; #1 in per capita income; and #1 in personal per capita income. Whatever that means.</p>
<p>Anyway, there’s no question that Connecticut has a lot of wealthy people living there. How will it affect financial aid for Connecticut residents? I suppose it would depend on whether they are among the wealthy or not. There are still a lot of lower income folks in Connecticut.</p>
<p>Sorry to nitpick, but your source quotes family income not household income. It would appear that Connecticut is not #1 in household income using the 2005 data.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what it means. Perhaps New Jersey has more homosexual couples than Connecticut, and New Jersey’s median family income will rise now that gay unions are legal here.</p>
<p>That data is outdated. NJ and CT used to be very close in median household income, with NJ ahead by a few dollars, but in recent years CT has moved up to #1 in that category as well.</p>
<p>Note that several states come out higher than Connecticut.</p>
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<p>From all of this, I would hypothesize the following:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>There are a few U.S. states that contain a lot of the suburbs/exurbs of big cities without containing the cities themselves. These states include New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Maryland.</p></li>
<li><p>As a result, these states have a relatively high number of high income professionals but relatively fewer urban poor.</p></li>
<li><p>Thus, these states tend to have very high income statistics.</p></li>
<li><p>These states are all very close to eachother in income statistics, but newspapers like to report on the income statistics like they are some kind of horse race.</p></li>
<li><p>Your data would appear to be outdated, but there is no question that Connecticut is a very wealthy state and is likely to rise in income statistics if the hedge fund industry continues to grow. When 2006 and 2007 data comes out, nobody will be surprised if Connecticut ends up #1.</p></li>
<li><p>None of this affects college financial aid all that much. If you are a wealthy New York stockbroker living in Greenwich, Connecticut, your kids will get the same financial aid as if you are a wealthy New York law firm partner living in Scarsdale, New York. On the other hand, if you are a security guard living in Elizabeth, New Jersey, your kids will get similar financial aid to a security guard living in Jamaica, Queens.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Yes, I agree they are pretty close in some measures. CT has a huge lead in per capita income, which is by far the most commonly used measure, though. That is why it is almost always called the “richest state.” In other measures, the statistics can be manipulated/digested in various ways to show any one of four or five states at the top.</p>
<p>A common conversation:</p>
<p>Nice Prada shoes. Are you from Connecticut?</p>