Income and Wealth in the United States: An Overview of the Latest Data (2024)

FAQs

What is the data on income in the US? ›

Income Levels Vary Across Geography, Race, and Gender. According to the ASEC, median household income was $70,784 in 2021, which is a decrease from the median household income in 2020 of $71,186.

According to Credit Suisse, individuals with more than $1 million in wealth sit in the top 1 percent bracket. The billionaire class is $2.6 trillion richer than before the pandemic, even if billionaire fortunes slightly fell in 2022 after their record-smashing peak in 2021.

In fact, the average American household earns a median income of under $70,000, but in some places, the top 1% can earn as much as $955,000. Those annual earnings can seem far out of reach in a country where less than 10% of all households earn more than $200,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Overall, the highest percentage of Americans (16.5%) have an income between $50,000-$74,999. With the second and third highest percentages being those who make between $75,000-$99,999 (12.2%) and $100,000-$149,000 (15.3%).

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median annual wage across all occupations in 2021 was $58,260 [1]. For a person living in Phoenix, Arizona, where the median wage is $56,610, earning above the national average may be considered very good.

Countries that pay the highest salaries globally are Switzerland, Luxembourg, Singapore, USA.

For comparison, the median income for U.S. households overall is under $70,000, with only 10% of households earning more than $200,000, according to SmartAsset. Coastal states like New York and California tend to have the highest earners, while top earners in more rural states like Mississippi and Arkansas make less.

What is considered upper middle class? ›

Many have graduate degrees with educational attainment serving as the main distinguishing feature of this class. Household incomes commonly exceed $100,000, with some smaller one-income earners household having incomes in the high 5-figure range.

8.8 % of U.S. adults are millionaires. 33% of U.S. millionaires are women. 76% of millionaires in the U.S. are white, and white people account for 60% of the total U.S. population. There are about 62.5 million millionaires globally, a 11.4% increase from 2020.

According to our extensive research: 18% of individual Americans make over $100k per year. 34.4% of US households make over $100k per year.

In 2021, the median household income is roughly $68,000. An upper class income is usually considered at least 50% higher than the median household income. Therefore, an upper class income in America is $100,000 and higher.

If you want to be a part of the 1% top earners in the US, you'll need an annual income of more than half a million dollars. American households need an annual gross income of $597,815 to be considered the highest-earning 1% in the country, a January 13 analysis by personal finance website SmartAsset found.

What it takes to be in the top 1% in the US. Using data from 2018 from the IRS and adjusting to 2021 dollars using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index to account for inflation, SmartAsset found that to be deemed part of the top 1% of earners nationally, an American family needs an income of $597,815.

Across the US, the average income for the top 2% of all earners is $206,000.

About 9,195,904 households or 7.00% of all US households made $250,000 or more in 2022.

Is $80000 a good salary for a single person? ›

No matter where you live, 80K is considered to be a pretty good salary for most people. This puts you in the higher middle-class range of people who are earning no matter where you live in the US. What is this?

Earning more than $100,000 per year would put you well ahead of the median American household, which brings in $74,784 as of 2021. Assuming you're an individual without dependents, that salary would qualify you as upper class, according to three different definitions (Brookings, Urban Institute and Pew Research).

Pew draws on the same formula used in the SmartAsset report, defining the middle class as those with incomes between two-thirds and twice the national median income. That works out to a national salary range of roughly $52,000 to $156,000 in 2020 dollars for a three-person household.

What Is the Average Salary in the US? The average annual salary in the United States is $72,020, which is around $4,632 a month after taxes and contributions, depending on where you live. However, extremely high earners tend to bias averages.

When it comes to happiness, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland make up the top three, suggesting that great work perks and a work-life balance makes people happier in their lives.

Tesla's CEO Elon Musk is the highest paid CEO in the world. His salary was USD 23.5 billion approximately in the year 2022.

And because of racial and gender wage gaps, women are less likely to reach the six-figure threshold compared with men. Just 11% of women make $100,000 or more on a national level, whereas 21% of men do.

Is 200k a year middle-class? ›

If you had an income of $200,000, that would put you in the top 10% of household incomes or the top 5% of individual incomes in 2021. Though I prefer household income over individual income, no matter how you cut it, $200k a year puts you on the higher end of the income spectrum.

How much does the average American make in a lifetime? The answer varies by industry, education level, gender and location. The typical lifetime gross income range for American males is $1.13 million to $3.05 million, and $510,000 to $1.86 million for women, according to Social Security Administration data.

Earning as much as $180k would still put someone in the “Middle Class” in some parts of the state. Reform California breaks down the reasons why the state is so unaffordable and how to fix it.

There are a ton of variables, and these are just loose guidelines. That said, if you make $200,000 a year, it means you can likely afford a home between $400,000 and $500,000.

$300,000 Feels Like A Middle-Class Income

Psychologically, earning $300,000 feels OK because it puts the household in the top 10% of household income earners. But making $300,000 feels like a middle-class income due to how little cash flow is left. A household needs to earn $470,000+ to be in the top 1% in 2022-2023.

You might need $5 million to $10 million to qualify as having a very high net worth while it may take $30 million or more to be considered ultra-high net worth. That's how financial advisors typically view wealth.

Between 35 to 44, the average net worth is $436,200, while between 45 to 54 that number increases to $833,200. Average net worth cracks the $1 million mark between 55 to 64, reaching $1,175,900. Average net worth again rises for those ages 65 to 74, to $1,217,700, before falling to $977,600 for someone over age 75.

Experts advice to have 10x of your annual salary saved by retirement age at 65. The average person aged 65-74 has $1,217,700 in net worth. The median net worth is $266,400.

by state U.S. 2020. In 2020, California had the highest number of millionaire households in the U.S., with 1.14 million households having one million or more in investible assets.

This is according to a study conducted by Ramsey Solutions, which is the largest study of millionaires to date. The average age of a millionaire is 49 years old, which means it takes them over 27 years of saving and investing to reach this status. This may seem daunting, but the truth is, it's never too late to start.

Do 90% of millionaires make over 100k a year? ›

Choose the right career

And one crucial detail to note: Millionaire status doesn't equal a sky-high salary. “Only 31% averaged $100,000 a year over the course of their career,” the study found, “and one-third never made six figures in any single working year of their career.”

The same study found more than half of Americans making six-figure incomes — 51% — were living paycheck to paycheck in December. That's up from 42% the year before, so 2022 was not a good year financially for the highest earners.

In the U.S. 18% of individuals earn more than $100,000, according to Zippia, a career advising company, and like the cost of living, income varies greatly between cities and states.

Making $100,000 a year is not common in the U.S. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 15.3% of American households make more than $100,000.

Households with a net worth of $1 million or more may be classified as members of the upper class, depending on the definition of class used.

In the United States, the upper class, as distinguished from the rich, is often considered to consist of those families that have for many generations enjoyed top social status based on their leadership in society—also referred to as old money.

Landing in the top 10% is a fairly attainable goal for upwardly mobile Americans. A study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that the average earnings of those in the top 10% were roughly $173,000 in 2020.

To find out more about how many people make over 100k per year, we've gathered essential facts and data. According to our extensive research: 18% of individual Americans make over $100k per year. 34.4% of US households make over $100k per year.

What are the top 2% incomes in the US? ›

You might need $5 million to $10 million to qualify as having a very high net worth while it may take $30 million or more to be considered ultra-high net worth. That's how financial advisors typically view wealth.

In the fourth quarter of 2022, 68.2 percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. In comparison, the lowest 50 percent of earners only owned three percent of the total wealth.

New York was the state with the greatest gap between rich and poor with a Gini coefficient score of 0.51 in 2021. Although not states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia had the highest Gini coefficients in the United States that year.

The middle 40% of U.S. families own 22% of the wealth. 51.5 million families are in this group. The bottom 50% own just 1% of the wealth in the U.S. and have a median net worth less than $122,000. The bottom 50% includes 64.3 million families, with 13.4 million of these families having a negative net worth.

California

There are just under 72,500 tax filers in California with an adjusted gross income above $1 million.

21,951,000 people in the U.S. have a net worth of $1 million or more. Among all states, New Jersey has the most millionaire households. Only 3% of American millionaires received an inheritance of $1 million or above. Real estate makes up about 40% of a typical millionaire's net worth.

In general, wages in the United States tend to be higher than those in Europe, particularly for skilled and high-paying jobs. Part of the reason for this is that the cost of living in the U.S. is usually higher than in Europe. This means that workers need to make more money to keep their standard of living the same.

Men earned a median salary of $50,391 in 2021 while women earned $36,726, or 73% of men's salaries. The gender wage gap exists throughout the economy. The gender pay gap is most significant among self-employed workers. Self-employed women make $37,836, just 60% of the $62,880 that self-employed men earn.

How much does the average American household make? ›

The median household income in the U.S. for 2021 is is $70,784, up from $68,010 in 2020.