New Jersey and The Roland Effect

Moving to New Jersey has obviously had devastating effects. Our arrival coincided with The Garden State losing it's place as richest U.S. State.

Back in 2005, the median household income of New Jersey was higher than any of the other fifty states, but Tina and my arrival apparently nudged that average down. Now we've been overtaken by Maryland, where the median household income is $65,144 a year (674 dollars more than in New Jersey.)

It highlights an interesting disparity in American lives. If you live in Mississippi, the median household income is a mere $34,473 - almost half what it is up here in the Tri-State.

It's another reminder that America is a big place - and the fifty individual states are very much like their own countries, with customs, traditions and economies all of their own. Life in Mississippi must be more affordable than in New Jersey, because it would be tough to support a household on just $35,000 here in New Brunswick.

That being said, I am constantly reminding myself about The American Experience as compared to life back in blighty. In the UK, Tina and I had reasonable incomes and jobs and we barely scraped by. Every single month, we'd see more money trickle out of our bank account than came in. Here in America, even with the poorly paid temp jobs we'd been working while we got settled in, our bank account remained fairly healthy.

It's cheaper to live in America, plain and simple. Despite all the cars and the roads and the apparent crime (luckily we haven't encountered any so far) the quality of life in America is clearly better because two working people can afford to live here. In England, despite never going out, never spending money unnecessarily, we couldn't. We were teetering on the edge of a big black hole and thank goodness we left when we did - before it swallowed us whole.

A lot of fuss is made about the plight of the working Joe in the USA. From my own experiences, I have come to realise that the situation's far worse in England. It's the people who can afford it least who get squeezed the most and the gap between rich and poor is getting more and more insurmountable every day.

Here in America, there's the American Dream. Whether that's riches and glory - or just a white picket fence and a Bengal leopard cat - you get far more opportunity to achieve your dreams in America than you do back home.

Richest and Poorest states of the Union