Madison County households are making almost $18,000 more than they were just five years ago, according to a report from the Huntsville Area Association of Realtors and the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

The median income in 2023 for county households is $81,968, according to the HAAR-UAH Third Quarter Economic Report. It was $64,130 in 2019. The median household income rose almost as much in a half decade as it did for the first two decades of this century. In 2001, it was $44,285 and $53,870 ($54,802 adjusted for inflation) in 2010, according to U.S. Census American Community Survey.

One of the report’s authors, UAH Clinical Associate Professor Brinda Mahalingam of the Economics Department in the College of Business, said record-low unemployment and labor shortages have driven up median incomes nationwide.

“Businesses had to increase wages to attract qualified candidates,” she said. “However, for Madison County in particular, the rapid expansion in workforce moving to the area and the influx of many new businesses to the county would be the added reason, I would guess.”

Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle credited the increase in middle income jobs. The Huntsville area has added more than 35,000 advanced manufacturing jobs in less than a decade.