These 5 NJ towns are among most affluent in USA

Well, they’re doing it to us again. It feels like these reports come out about which towns are the wealthiest just to make the rest of us feel bad about ourselves.

This time it’s a personal finance website called MoneyLion that issued a report on the 50 most affluent towns in the nation. Turns out five of them are here in Jersey. And you can bet it’s not where I live, which is Matawan. Nor will it be where I grew up, which is Rahway.

They broke it down by the criteria of a town having at least 5,000 households and also being part of a metropolitan area but not the principal city. In other words, suburbs. Fine. I’ll bite.

brown and white concrete house near green trees under blue sky during daytime

The five New Jersey towns that made the most affluent list are:

Westfield 

Average home value: $1,315,940
Average household income: $306,889

Summit

Average home value: $1,455,811
Average household income: $306,473

Tenafly

Average home value: $1,331,396
Average household income: $306,119

Princeton

Average home value: $1,057,480
Average household income: $275,137

Ridgewood

Average home value: $1,238,821
Average household income: $273,185

Thanks MoneyLion for telling most of us where we’ll never live.

brown wooden bench near green trees during daytime

Here’s the thing though. Do we really care?

I knew a man who lived in Summit years ago and had this opulent, ostentatious home complete with maids and a British au pair to raise his children. Affluence on steroids. And he was the most boring, uptight, sniveling snob you could imagine. If he were a movie character you’d say it was too much of a cliche.

I’ll take real people living through real problems and tough times because that builds character and empathy. Two things I value far more than money.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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