Howard leads Baltimore area in wealth

Howard County (Map, News) - Howard County ranked among the highest-earning counties in the nation, and easily outstripped other counties in the Baltimore region in household income, according to 2005 census estimates released Tuesday.

With its median household income of $91,184, Howard ranked just behind the Northern Virginia suburbs of Loudoun and Fairfax counties, and well above Maryland’s statewide median of $61,592. Out of the county’s estimated 96,428 households, 44.5 percent had an income of $100,000 or more.

“Howard County’s education levels are much higher, it has a low poverty rate, and it has grown very rapidly over a few years,” said Mahlon Straszheim, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland, College Park. “The unemployment rate’s among the lowest in the state — [almost] everybody’s employed in Howard County.”

While the Washington region has contributed strongly to Maryland’s surge in income, Howard County owes more to high-paying local jobs and commuters to Baltimore than it does to D.C., Straszheim said.

But Dunbar Brooks, manager of Data Development for the Baltimore Metropolitan Council, said the region’s prosperity is helped by growth in the Washington region.

“You’re going to get a spillover effect in Howard and Anne Arundel Counties,” areas that may be close suburbs of Baltimore but also outlying suburbs of Washington, Brooks said. “Folks in Baltimore may feel they’re getting sucked into the vortex of Washington, but they’re seeing economic benefits as well.”

Many well-paid people turn to the Baltimore area as an alternative to Washington’s high cost of living, Brooks said, and more high-paying employers in the defense and security industries are spreading north.

The next-highest of the counties surrounding Baltimore was Carroll County, with a median income of $75,833. Carroll was closely followed by Anne Arundel, with a median income of $71,961.

“Anne Arundel’s been on a tear for the last two years,” Straszheim said, with an economy fueled by a surge in technical and Information Technology-related jobs.

“The outer suburbs seem to be doing very well, and the city’s growing, too ... but the city still has the burden of holding the vast majority of the region’s poor,” Brooks said.

Baltimore City’s median household income ranked lowest in the region, at $32,456. The city’s poverty level — an estimated 22.6 percent of all people in the city — could be dragging that average down, along with a general lack of the jobs in finance, insurance or business services that help drive economic growth, Straszheim said.

msantoni@baltimoreexaminer.com

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