{"id":773,"date":"2025-08-11T16:54:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T16:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.canoeinstructor.com\/?p=773"},"modified":"2025-08-14T12:14:48","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T12:14:48","slug":"living-cheek-to-jowl-with-the-super-rich-in-jackson-or-aspen-good-threads-and-no-housing-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.canoeinstructor.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/11\/living-cheek-to-jowl-with-the-super-rich-in-jackson-or-aspen-good-threads-and-no-housing-opinion\/","title":{"rendered":"Living cheek to jowl with the super-rich in Jackson or Aspen: good threads and no housing (Opinion)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In December, Teton County, Wyoming, residents learned they were the wealthiest people in the country<\/a>, making an average of $471,751 a year. That\u2019s almost a half a million dollars a year for \u201cevery person living in Teton County in 2023 — regardless of age, health, employment status.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the county seat in Jackson, town council member and economic consultant Jonathan Schechter made the \u201cwealthiest\u201d calculation in his \u201ccothrive\u201d newsletter. He\u2019d crunched the latest U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates from 3,244 counties, parishes, and boroughs nationwide.<\/p>\n

Schechter\u2019s analysis made a small group of us — social critics with more than 100 collective years of Jackson Hole living \u2014 consider our new status in what Schechter called \u201cthe wealthiest county in the wealthiest country in the history of the world.\u201d Our group of aging ski-bum, bicycle-riding gadflies wondered how the other 99.7% of America lived.<\/p>\n

We needed to find out. We would start down the social ladder at a community that struggles to flop into second place. It\u2019s Pitkin County, Colorado, site of the town of Aspen<\/a>, a village about which we had only vague notions.<\/p>\n

We would visit by bicycle over six days, observing Aspenites who would, we thought, represent more of the nation\u2019s hoi polloi. Off we pedaled to cross the Income Gulf of America.<\/p>\n

As we cycled up Colorado\u2019s Roaring Fork Valley toward Aspen, we ran into the first of the locals. He was a 70-year-old impresario with all the bona fides of a longtime resident — greying braided ponytail, tank top, beater rig and a long resume as a roadie with the Grateful Dead.<\/p>\n

He elaborated on his curriculum vitae, which included pre-concert street deals. \u201cDetroit was easy,\u201d he said. \u201cThey used to give me $500. That was a lot of money in those days.\u201d<\/p>\n

We parried. \u201cWe\u2019re from the wealthiest community in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAspen is the most expensive,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n

Pitkin\u2019s annual per-capita income is $255,839, we riposted, as we headed up-valley. How spendy could this place be, we wondered, if it names a top hotel after a Nabisco cracker?<\/p>\n

We were somewhere around Basalt on the edge of Aspen when the prices started to kick up. Numbers on the tap-insert-swipe thingies increased alarmingly. Finally arriving in Aspen, we rattled to a stop at a downtown bar, where beer came in $9 pints.<\/p>\n

\u201cMartini?\u201d the menu suggested. Coming from the wealthiest county, we were practiced.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll take two.\u201d Federal data said we could afford it. \u201cAnd a burger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twenty-five bucks for a Bombay Sapphire gin cocktail. Thirty bucks for a dead-cow patty so tall a mule would have to stretch its lips to take a bite of the towering brioche bun.<\/p>\n

Perhaps we missed some of Schechter\u2019s small print. A few billionaires must have skewed our lofty per-capita income figure. In fact, the median annual Teton County income is just $141,500, but still more than anyone in our peloton was making. And second-hand Ralph Lauren button-downs at Jackson\u2019s Browse \u2019n\u2019 Buy are up to $7.<\/p>\n

We read local papers to dig deeper into the customs and culture of our Colorado subject. The papers said the sheriff was taking a trespasser to court who\u2019d lived in a tree for 10 years. A humanitarian nonprofit was running out of money. The Chamber of Commerce was bragging about the coming tourist season.<\/p>\n