Conn. Suburbs Lead in Personal Income

Residents of the Connecticut suburbs of New York City had a per capita personal income in 1988 nearly four times higher than those of a South Texas metropolitan area at the bottom of a new government list.

The Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk-Danbury, Conn., area retained its top ranking with per capita personal income of $29,084, compared with $7,302 for the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Tex., area, the Commerce Department said.

The Connecticut suburbs also were at the top of the 1987 list of 319 metropolitan areas surveyed by the department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. McAllen-Edinburg-Mission was last in 1987, too.

For the nation as a whole, per capita income in 1988 was $16,490, up from $15,484 a year earlier. Per capita personal income is the annual total personal income of residents divided by the area population.

New York City was the richest metropolitan area in terms of total personal income with $174.74 billion in 1988, the study found. Enid, Okla., was at the other end with a total personal income of $873 million.

Following New York at the top of the total personal income list were Los Angeles-Long Beach, $161.37 billion; Chicago, $118.48 billion; Philadelphia-N.J., $91.05 billion; Washington-Md.-Va., $86.54 billion; Boston-Lawrence-Salem-Lowell-Brockton, Mass., $83.11 billion; Detroit, $80.75 billion; Nassau-Suffolk, N.Y., $63.16 billion; Houston, $52.58 billion, and Anaheim-Santa Ana, $51.35 billion.

Newark, N.J., which ranked 12th in 1983, rose to ninth in 1988 with per capita personal income of $22,963. Anchorage, Alaska, dropped from first to 17th with per capita income of $21,840.

Following the Connecticut suburbs of New York City were San Francisco, $26,309; Bergen-Passaic, N.J., $25,388; Middlesex-Somerset-Hunterdon, N.J., $25,140; Lake County, Ill., $24,009; Nassau-Suffolk, N.Y., $23,832; San Jose, Calif., $23,181; Washington-Md.-Va., $23,175; and Newark, N.J., and West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach, Fla., both with $22,824.