This file photo shows a view of downtown Los Angeles. Getty Image
(s) NEXSTAR) - Have you ever wondered how your income compares to that of your neighbors? The new Go Banking Rates data analysis shows how much you need to earn to be considered rich in income data from the United States Census Bureau to determine the salary a household needs to earn to be among the top 20% of the city's top wage earners, which they define as “rich.” See the full list of Go Banking fees here. These are the richest neighborhoods in Southern California, from the areas of Los Angeles and the surrounding area to San Diego. These neighborhoods, while still affluent, generally ranked lower on the overall list of the richest neighborhoods in the United States than the suburbs surrounding New York City.
Sign up to receive the best deals for empty private jet flight updates. National political reporters, as they descend onto the political battlefield, lazily call Orange County a giant suburb, but in reality it presents itself more as an urban workplace. Real job growth in Orange County over the next decade, according to state projections, will be low-income in food preparation and service, personal care assistants, and retail sales. Instead, what sets Orange County apart is the high percentage of its workers who hold high-paying professional service positions, from finance to accounting.
So, while it's interesting that so many young activists and political actors from across the country came to Orange County for campaign season, it would be much better if they could stay and start new families and new businesses. That means Orange County is not developing its next generation of residents and workers and, in fact, is losing many of the young people who graduate from its universities with technical degrees. Orange County has not developed the robust and innovative technology sector of other wealthy American places. Learn more about the richest cities in Orange County, California, based on median household income, median home sales price, and cost of living.
Orange County, despite being a hub of work and a crossroads between Southern California counties, has been irresponsibly cheap when it comes to building its infrastructure. Jerry Nickelsburg, director of Anderson Forecast, says that Orange County is not one economy but two. According to statistics, Orange County looks as flawless as any of the toned bodies on Corona del Mar beach. Many of those workers can no longer afford to live in Orange County, so they travel from neighboring, cheaper counties of Riverside and Los Angeles.
When brokerage agency Charles Schwab asked 500 adults in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties how much a person needed to own to be considered “rich,” that high net worth was the average local answer. Earlier this year, UCLA's Anderson Forecast found that, for the first time on record, Orange County has more local jobs than people to fill them. Orange County is also a place where you should want to raise your children; schools are good and dropout rates are low.
