Please respond to, add to, agree, disagree to this post in 5 sentences or more. 

I live in Madison, Alabama, which is a suburb of Huntsville.  Because I often see local news broadcasts that tout the fact that the county in which I live is blessed with a far more prosperous economy than most parts of the state, I felt that the per capita income of this area would reflect this prosperity.  I was a little to hopeful in my projection.  I estimated the per capita income at $35,000.00 per year.  I was initially disappointed to find out, per the United States Census Bureau’s web site that the actual per capita income of Madison County, AL is $32,307.00.  I felt a lot better after I found that the Per Capita for the entire U.S. was only $28,320.00 in 2014.  With a CNBC story from 2014 rating Alabama as the 7th. cheapest state in the country to live in, I think we are doing pretty well in this area.  In recent years the military has gone through a series of Base Realignment and Closure processes.  These BRAC’s continue to bring more personnel to Huntsville’s Redstone Arsenal.  Each time this happens, the influx of people from other parts of the country are usually very happy to find that housing in this area is far cheaper than they are used to.  I am sure that the lower percentage of unskilled laborers in the work force here, where most jobs are related to technology, has a big impact on the per capita income.  The perception of Huntsville in the local and state media is one of a prosperous community that has escaped the cycle of poverty that affects a large portion Alabama.  Using the illustration in figure 7.1, the average resident here would fall into the upper middle class segment of the diagram.  I would say that the overall positive outlook among the workforce here, as well as the frequent stories of new industries moving to town, help influence my over estimate of the per capita income in this area.