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Rich Floridians
Where the Rich Reside
The state's wealthiest ZIP codes.
32631 - Earleton
An unincorporated area on Lake Sante Fe northeast of Gainesville, Earelton sounds from all accounts like a pleasant little place — lakefront houses, rural, home to prosperous professors, doctors, professionals and their families from Gainesville 20 minutes away. It stands out in Florida as the ZIP code with the highest median earnings for females working full time: $99,667, according to the U.S. Census. (In distant second is Everglades City on the southwest coast at $72,083.)
A “really good lot” on the lakefront costs $300,000, says Ron Blake, broker at C.B. Isaac Realty, who lives on the lake himself. “You have the ospreys, the eagles. You never feel rushed.” At $250,000-plus, Earleton ties with an area west of Boynton Beach in Palm Beach County for highest median non-family household income — households where there is only one resident or more than one but not related by marriage, birth or adoption.
ZIP Notes
Fisher Island and Rosemary Beach have very small populations, and ZIP codes with small numbers of households can produce outlier results. The caveat with any list of wealthy ZIP codes — and plenty of analysts come up with a list — is watching for what’s measured and how it’s weighted. One online list ranks a Tallahassee ZIP code as the second-richest in Florida. Problem is, it’s the ZIP for Florida State University. Another online blog has Fisher Island third nationally, Boca Grande 13th and Palm Beach at 20th. The Palm Beach ZIP, with more than 9,000 people over 16 and 5,600 households, isn’t a metropolis but isn’t a fly-speck either. What’s more, 25 people from the Forbes 400 are residents or have a second home there. In 2011, Forbes came up with is own method for determining the wealthiest 64 places in the nation: Fisher Island topped the list with $3.23 million in average income and $57.2 million in net worth. Palm Beach was fourth nationally, Boca Raton seventh and Key Largo 11th.
TAX Notes
If you have to ask, you can't afford…
Fisher Island residents paid the most property taxes in Florida, $47,000 on average. Palm Beachers were second at $18,000 on average.
The tax man cometh:
Fisher Island, which leads so many wealth statistics, also led in total tax liability at $272,000 per return. The top income bracket, $200,000-plus, had a $579,000 average tax bite. Palm Beach was second overall at $133,000. In fact, the 6,100 tax returns filed in those two places represent just seven one hundredths of the state’s returns but 1.4% of the income tax paid in Florida.
There are wage slaves and then there are wage slaves:
Overall, the zip code with the highest average salaries and wages in Florida is Fisher Island at $180,000. But the zip code with the highest reported average salary and wages in the $200,000-plus bracket in Florida is 32830. That’s Disney World. The 120 returns filed from there in that bracket average $608,000 in salaries and wages. Herein lies the difficulty in zip code data. Disney World actually has only a score of residents, but the IRS data lists 572 returns filed there. Tax returns just ask for a current address, not a primary one, so 550 or so individual filers are listing their Post Office Boxes in Disney World as their current address.
The zip code encompassing Brickell Key and the Brickell waterfront condos in Miami and the zip code for Key Biscayne rank second and third in the $200,000-plus bracket. each was fourth nationally, Boca Raton seventh and Key Largo 11th.
