Household Income Figures Released—

Connecticut’s Gold Coast Copes With Third Place

By John Christofersen

Associated Press

STAMFORD — Fairfield County has long stood apart as a place where celebrities and business executives live large and outsiders occasionally mock or scorn their excesses.

But Connecticut’s Gold Coast, home to Martha Stewart and retired General Electric chief executive Jack Welch, has lost its privileged perch in the richest state in the nation.

Connecticut had the highest wages in the country with a median household income of $56,409, but for the first time in recent years Fairfield County did not lead the state, newly released census figures show.

Fairfield County came in third at $60,881, behind Middlesex County at $61,770 and Tolland County at $61,290 in 2003, the most recent year available. The median income for the United States is $43,318.

“We’ll pray for them,” quipped Fred Carstensen, director of the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis. “Obviously Fairfield County should probably file for some emergency relief.”

But no one is firing the household help yet. Greenwich, home to celebrities such as Diana Ross, Mel Gibson, and Ron Howard, has coped with setbacks before, such as when the Connecticut Supreme Court forced the town to allow out-of-towners to use its pristine beaches.

“Hard times down here is when people buy the 500 series BMW instead of the 800 series BMW,” said defense attorney Mickey Sherman, who has represented some of the area’s well-heeled residents.

Census officials cautioned that the numbers are only estimates.

If Fairfield is having a hard time keeping up with the other counties, it may be temporary.

The income figures may reflect a bad year on the stock market, said Edward Deak, an economics professor at Fairfield University. In 2002, Fairfield County had a median household income of $62,756, nearly $2,000 higher than the latest figure.

Fairfield County also includes cities such as Bridgeport with large populations of poor residents, while Tolland and Middlesex counties are more suburban.

“It underscores the diversity of Fairfield County,” said George Jepsen, a former state Senate majority leader from Stamford.

The figures also show a healthy trend in which wealth is spreading around the state, Carstensen said. Tolland, in the northern part of the state, has seen an influx of new residents, while Middlesex County is enjoying higher incomes from jobs related to Pfizer’s global research center and Yale University’s investments in biotechnology, he said.

“I don’t think there really is any threat here,” Carstensen said. “It’s nice those other two counties are showing great vitality. What it testifies to is the growing economic diversity in Connecticut.”