Norwich-New London area 12th best-paying small metro for millennials, report says
The Norwich-New London area is the 12th best-paying small metropolitan area in the country for millennials, according to a new report from the New York-based financial startup Fabric.
The report itself only noted the top 10 small metropolitan areas, but a corresponding news release pointed to southeastern Connecticut as number 12. The analysis was of 120 small metros, those with a population between 100,000 and 350,000.
Fabric used data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis to determine the best-paying areas for millennials. The Pew Research Center defines millennials as those born between 1981 and 1996.
The analysis found that median earnings for full-time millennials in 2018 was $45,000 in the Norwich-New London Metropolitan Statistical Area and $40,000 nationwide.
But Fabric adjusted earnings up or down based on cost of living, and since the Norwich-New London area has a cost of living 2 percent above the national average, median earnings were adjusted down to $44,204.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey estimates for 2018, the Norwich-New London area spans 665.1 square miles from Colchester, Salem and the Connecticut River in the west to the Rhode Island border, and north to Lebanon and Sprague. Its population is 266,784.
With adjusted figures, the best-paying small metropolitan areas for millennials were Bismarck, N.D., at $50,538; La Crosse-Onalaska area in Wisconsin and Minnesota at $48,966; and Mansfield, Ohio, at $46,512.
The top three midsize metros were Des Moines-West Des Moines, Iowa; Ann Arbor, Mich.; and Ogden-Clearfield, Utah.
Among large metropolitan areas, or those with a population over 1 million, Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford was ranked fourth, with adjusted median earnings of $49,116.
The top three were San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif.; San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, Calif.; and Boston-Cambridge-Newton in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford was one of only two areas out of the top 15 with populations that decreased over the previous five years, along with Pittsburgh.
Fabric found that cities with below-average purchasing power for millennials included Los Angeles, San Diego, Miami and Honolulu. This indicates wages are not high enough to counteract the high cost of living.
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