Who Has The Money In Cranberry County?

Well, now that we have all that Baby Jesus and Peace On Earth stuff out of the way, let's wonder about how much money each of us has!

This site could indeed be the friggin' Warlock of your Jealous Face.

It lists the median household income for each town in Massachusetts. As you know, median household income is the amount that divides the income distribution into two equal groups, half having income above that amount, and half having income below that amount.

Yeah, I didn't know that either.

It is an effective means of determining and comparing regional wealth distribution. Massachusetts has a median household income of $67,846 and some coins. We're comfortably ahead of most other states, who combine to have a $53,482 national average. The information we'll use is ranged from 2010-2014.

Worry not if the green-eyed devil of Envy overcomes you a bit as you read this. It's natural to want what the other man has, and men as sublime as Napoleon have said that religion exists merely to keep the poor from slaughtering the rich.

We won't get into all of that just yet, but will instead break down Eastern Massachusetts in a way that you aren't used to seeing.

We're used to thinking Geographically, i.e. "Carver is west of Plymouth," and we'd all be constantly lost if we didn't. However, things are generally multi-dimensional. As Steven Wright once said to a woman who told him that his socks didn't match, "They match to me, because I go by Thickness."

Likewise, we shall go Economic.

If you look at the state through a lens of median household income, you see several interesting facts. For starters, the eastern half of the state would be far better off if we jettisoned everything west of Worcester. They sort of bog us down, and our total would be much higher if we traded Western Massachusetts for maybe the Nashua area and the more industrious parts of Rhode Island.

Let them have UMass, the Basketball Hall Of Fame and Six Flags. I'm not looking down on Western Mass, as there was once a time when ritzy Duxbury was a backwater farm town, and the western part of the state had profitable mills. Times just change, player.

However, Massachusetts is a part of the megalopolis that runs down to about coastal Virginia. After that, America itself is a sort of Western Massachusetts. There are wealthy communities all across America, but the only place you see deep blotches on a color-coded median household income map is the megalopolis.

We (Southeastern Massachusetts) are sort of a upper middle class of Massachusetts. The real money in the state seems to be in the Metrowest and Essex County. We do OK, but the bucks tend to look inland more than coastal.

In fact, once you go south of tony Duxbury, you can't find a town with a MHI of more than $96K. Cape Cod scores worse than you'd think she would. At that point, you are really too far away to reasonably commute into Boston. You'd never see the sun shining on your house.

We're not lower class- that's out west, remember- but we aren't the big earners in the state. Weston, at a MHI of $201K, is the highest in the state. Gosnold, population 75, has the lowest MHI at $31K, no mean feat in a town that the Forbes family owns land in.

So, let's carve up some communities, and sort through the Earners and the Slackers.

CAPE COD AND THE ISLANDS

You have four heavy hitters in this region: Sandwich ($84K), Oak Bluffs ($80K), Chilmark ($67K) and Nantucket ($86K). Handcuff them to some lesser-earning regions, like Gosnold, Wellfleet ($45K), Truro ($58K), D-Y ($50 and $55K, respectively) and Provincetown ($41K).

The rest of the Cape works a range of $58-69K.

Bourne, Falmouth, Mashpee, Chatham, Brewster, Harwich and Eastham are all within about $4k of each other, with Barnstable ($58K, a lot of damned good those Kennedys do!) and Orleans (also $58K) just under the $60K Mendoza Line.

You'd think that the Cape would score better. Only Sandwich and Nantucket wouldn't get snobbed straight off the South Shore, at least with the Money Talk. Big Bank takes Little Bank.


THE SOUTH COAST

The sketchy South Coast that we all know and love has a rather wide disparity of wealth. Her two major population centers (New Bedford and Fall River) range between $33K and $36K. That is what standardized test people refer to as the Bottom Percentile.

There is some paper to be found on the South Coast. Westport ($80K), Rochester ($94K) and Freetown ($82K) can spread the CREAM around. These are the people you should burglarize if you live in New Beffuh or Fall Down River.

The South Coast, depending on how you stretch it, has some other nice spots. D-R ($85K each), Dighton, Lakeville and Berkley (all between $82 nd $85K) hve some cheddar, but the expansion also nets you large population/low income ($52K) Taunton.

Dartmouth, Acushnet, Fairhaven and Wareham all clock in the 60s, while Marion, Mattapoisett, Swansea, Somerset and Seekonk are in the 70s.

THE SWAMPLANDS

Call it the interior South Shore or interior Southeastern Massachusetts if you like. It all depends on how you carve up the South Shore, as well as what you do when you go too far north physically and culturally to claim South Coast.

Again, the big population center here is the lower income area. Brockton rocks a solid $48K MHI, although it is hardly representative of the region.

The three Bridgewaters (East, West, and just plain Bridgewater) run the $80-88K range, with Westie slacking to the $81K level. Throw in their cousin Raynham at $80K, too.

The better rich/poor part of town story involves the Atlleboros, where North earns $81K, while regular Attleboro sleeps late every day and only clocks $65K.

Easton ($95K) and Mansfield ($93K) dominate the region financially. If you can chop Easton off of North Easton, you get an even more impressive number, although I may have that back asswards.


THE SOUTH SHORE

Here there be Moolah.

The South Shore is the economic anchorman of the Southeastern Massachusetts region. Your average Cohasset ($117K) resident earns three or four times what some poor Fall River SOB hauls home off the fishing boat every year, probably without ever leaving the nice, warm office.

It is not the economic engine of SE Massachusetts, as most of her wealth dribbles down from Boston. She also does not have any great effect upon how things are run in, say, Barnstable. There is not what biologists call a Symbiotic Relationship.

Duxbury rules the region to the tune of $120K. They surged past Cohasset when I moved to the Cape, a move which concurrently dropped Bourne under Falmouth.

Dat Next Level Down is comprised of Norwell ($110K), Hingham ($103K), Scituate ($102K), and Hanover ($98K). They sort of finish off the region's Top Percentile. Barely missing the top percentile are Marshfield ($89K), Pembroke ($89K) and Kingston ($86K).

Moving inland a bit, you'd also net Plympton ($94K), Hanson ($93K) and Abington ($81K). The weak links are Halifax ($69K), Rockland ($66K), Whitman ($76K, and before you get mad, know that Whitman would be a Fat Cat if she were on the other side of the Cape Cod Canal), Carver ($72K) and Middleboro ($75K).

The larger towns in the region- Weymouth and Plymouth- grade out lower than the Hinghams and Scituates of the area. They kick in $69K and $76K respectively.

Don't hate the player... hate the game.