25 Richest Cities in America

Manchester-Nashua is the wealthiest metro area in New Hampshire and the third wealthiest in the broader New England region. The typical area household earns $78,769 a year, about $5,400 more than the typical household in the state and $18,400 more than the typical American household.

Contributing to the area’s high incomes is a favorable job market. Just 2.6% of the metro area’s labor force is unemployed, well below the 3.8% national unemployment rate.

Trenton, New Jersey’s capital, is the only metro area in the state to rank on this list. The typical household in the metro area earns $79,173 a year, about $19,000 more than the typical American household.

Like many metro areas on this list, Trenton is home to a well-educated labor force and has a favorable job market. Nearly 44% of adults in the metro area have a bachelor’s degree or higher compared to just 32% of American adults, and the city’s unemployment rate of 3.5% is well below the national unemployment rate of 3.8%.

The typical household in Santa Cruz-Watsonville earns $79,705 a year, more than the median income in all but a dozen other metro areas nationwide. The metro area sits directly south of Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay, a region containing several other metro areas on this list.

The metro area’s high incomes are largely offset by the area’s high cost of living. Goods and services in the Santa Cruz metro area are about 25% more expensive than they are nationwide, on average. Accounting for cost of living, the typical household’s buying power is equal to about $63,900, only slightly more than the national median annual household income of $60,336.

Hawaii is a relatively high-income state, and both metro areas in Hawaii rank on this list. In Kahului-Wailuku-Lahaina, the typical household earns $80,183 a year, nearly $20,000 more than the typical American household.

Kahului-Wailuku-Lahaina has a strong job market. Just 2.8% of the area’s labor force is unemployed, well below the 3.8% national unemployment rate. Many of those jobs are in tourism, a major industry in the state. Of all workers in Kahului-Wailuku-Lahaina, 27.4% are employed in the entertainment, recreation, accomodation, and food services industry, nearly triple the industry’s 9.7% employment concentration nationwide.

Santa Rosa is a metro area of half a million people located about 50 miles north of San Francisco. Most households in the metro area earn over $80,000 a year, and one in every 10 households earns at least $200,000. Like most other high-income cities, Santa Rosa is expensive. The cost of goods and services is about 21% higher than average in Santa Rosa, and as a result, the buying power of the typical household income is only about $66,500, only marginally higher than the national median annual household income of $60,336.