Meanwhile, the gap between the haves and the have-nots has grown dramatically wider, said Michael Cassidy, president of the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis in Richmond.
, the second- and third-highest such ratios in the country, a recent study by the institute showed. Only New Jersey had a greater gulf. Maryland ranked seventh.
Much of this inequity is driven by the fact that the region’s workforce is the best educated in the country, economists say. Many of the jobs both in and out of government require advanced or specialized degrees, which generally fetch hefty salaries.
Those in Virginia with college degrees saw their wages rise 5 percent during the recession, while those without saw steep declines, the study showed.
In Great Falls, Kimberley Sisco, 43, personifies the gap. She is just 18 credits shy of a degree in communications, law, economics and government from American University, but she works as a bartender.
She and her husband, who rent a stone cottage, are barely scraping by. “I’ve rolled quarters to pay the rent,” Sisco said. “I don’t go out to eat. I don’t take vacations. I haven’t shopped for new clothes, other than for my son, in seven years.”
Sisco used to consider herself solidly middle class. But when the economy tanked, her job as a graphic designer was outsourced to Indonesia, and her husband was unable find work as a handyman. Together, they brought in about $35,000 annually in the past two years.
She is keenly aware of the divide between herself and her neighbors. She built a backyard playground — with a tree house, slide and trampoline — entirely with neighbors’ gifts and castoffs. She sews blankets for abandoned fawns at the Wildlife Rescue League from donated mink coats.
When she e-mailed the local baseball league to ask if she could pay her son’s registration fee in installments, they waived it. She sent another e-mail and ended up with donated cleats and other practice gear.
She wonders if it would help her family’s future to finish her degree.
“I think about it all the time,” she said. “Can I do an independent study or get grants to help me with the cost? If you want to know the truth, I’m so tired most of the time, it’s enough just to get through each week right now.”
A transformation
In some ways, the wooded hills and rustic barns of Great Falls still hark back to the days when George Washington rode to the hounds nearby.
“When I moved out here, my parents thought I’d gone to the ends of the Earth,” said Wayne Foley, who has lived in Great Falls for more than three decades and runs a business that builds custom homes.
Back then, you could still buy a small house for less than $100,000. Now, the average home price is $1 million.
Foley has seen the place change from a community of farmers and horse-lovers into a haven for the wealthy, who have been tearing down old stone cottages and putting up increasingly large homes.
The first wave of money came in the ’90s, when AOL millionaires and other workers from the burgeoning tech corridor around Dulles began moving in. These days, many of Foley’s clients are defense contractors. He is doing one million-dollar remodeling project that includes an observatory, pistol range and audio-visual room.
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