Utah County reports a median household income of $96,877, which is 52 per cent above the middle county in the country at $63,672. On that measure, it ranks 170th of the 3,142 counties with figures for both household and personal income, inside the top 5 per cent. Measured by income per person, it reports $35,091, only $1,138 above the middle county, and ranks 1,380th. Same county, same source, 1,210 places apart.
Utah County has 3.41 people per household, the third highest of the 611 counties with more than 100,000 residents. It also has the youngest population of that group: 32.2 per cent of residents are under 18, the highest share of any large county, and 7.8 per cent are 65 or over, the lowest. Household income counts what everyone in a house earns together. Income per person spreads the same money across everyone living there, children included. Poverty is 8.7 per cent, below the middle county at 13.2 per cent, so this is not a county under strain. It is a county where the same money supports more people.
Barnstable County in Massachusetts, which is Cape Cod, reports a median household income of $94,452, within 3 per cent of Utah County's. Income per person there is $60,325, 72 per cent higher than Utah County's $35,091. It has 2.21 people per household, 32.3 per cent of residents aged 65 and over and 14.4 per cent under 18. Put another way, 102,981 households on Cape Cod cover 230,073 residents, while Utah County's 195,602 households cover 683,622. Travis County in Texas, which is Austin, reports $97,169 per household and $59,289 per person, with 2.28 people per household. Of the 118 counties above 100,000 residents whose household income matches or beats Utah County's, not one reports a lower income per person.
Davis County, immediately north, has the second-widest gap of any large county: $108,058 per household against $41,451 per person, with 3.18 people per household and 30.8 per cent of residents under 18. It ranks 94th in the country on household income and 554th on income per person. Two neighbouring counties, both inside the top hundred on one measure and well down the table on the other.
Both are right. They answer different questions. Anything a household buys once- a car, broadband, home insurance, a mortgage- sits with household income, and on that measure Utah County is one of the strongest markets in the country. Anything bought per person- a subscription, a ticket, a meal, a phone plan- sits with income per person, and on that measure Utah County is ordinary. Choose the denominator without thinking about it and the county moves 1,210 places, which is the difference between making a target list and never appearing on one.
Holding household income, income per person, household size, and age together for every county, and keeping all four current, is the part that used to be slow and expensive. Treating one income figure as the whole answer was a reasonable way to work when assembling the rest took weeks. With all four side by side, the counties that look alike on a single measure separate quickly.
Cambium AI builds synthetic populations from this same public data, so a research or marketing team can see household income, income per person, household size, and age for every county they cover before the budget is set. These figures come from the American Community Survey, the Census Bureau's annual household survey, which reports all four for every county in the country.
Data source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates