Graph and download economic data for Real Median Family Income in the United States (MEFAINUSA672N) from 1953 to 2023 about family, median, income, real, and USA.

In 2023, just over 50 percent of Americans had an annual household income that was less than 75,000 U.S. dollars. The median household income was 80,610 U.S. dollars in 2023. Income and wealth in the United States After the economic recession in 2009, income inequality in the U.S. is more prominent across many metropolitan areas. The Northeast region is regarded as one of the wealthiest in the country. Maryland, New Jersey, and Massachusetts were among the states with the highest median household income in 2020. In terms of income by race and ethnicity, the average income of Asian households was 94,903 U.S. dollars in 2020, while the median income for Black households was around half of that figure. What is the U.S. poverty threshold? The U.S. Census Bureau annually updates its list of poverty levels. Preliminary estimates show that the average poverty threshold for a family of four people was 26,500 U.S. dollars in 2021, which is around 100 U.S. dollars less than the previous year. There were an estimated 37.9 million people in poverty across the United States in 2021, which was around 11.6 percent of the population. Approximately 19.5 percent of those in poverty were Black, while 8.2 percent were white.

This statistic shows the median household income in the United States from 1970 to 2020, by income tier. In 2020, the median household income for the middle class stood at 90,131 U.S. dollars, which was approximately a 50 percent increase from 1970. However, the median income of upper income households in the U.S. increased by almost 70 percent compared to 1970.

U.S. citizens with a professional degree had the highest median household income in 2023, at 172,100 U.S. dollars. In comparison, those with less than a 9th grade education made significantly less money, at 35,690 U.S. dollars. Household income The median household income in the United States has fluctuated since 1990, but rose to around 70,000 U.S. dollars in 2021. Maryland had the highest median household income in the United States in 2021. Maryland’s high levels of wealth is due to several reasons, and includes the state's proximity to the nation's capital. Household income and ethnicity The median income of white non-Hispanic households in the United States had been on the rise since 1990, but declining since 2019. While income has also been on the rise, the median income of Hispanic households was much lower than those of white, non-Hispanic private households. However, the median income of Black households is even lower than Hispanic households. Income inequality is a problem without an easy solution in the United States, especially since ethnicity is a contributing factor. Systemic racism contributes to the non-White population suffering from income inequality, which causes the opportunity for growth to stagnate.

This dataset contains replication files for "The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute Income Mobility Since 1940" by Raj Chetty, David Grusky, Maximilian Hell, Nathaniel Hendren, Robert Manduca, and Jimmy Narang. For more information, see https://opportunityinsights.org/paper/the-fading-american-dream/. A summary of the related publication follows. One of the defining features of the “American Dream” is the ideal that children have a higher standard of living than their parents. We assess whether the U.S. is living up to this ideal by estimating rates of “absolute income mobility” – the fraction of children who earn more than their parents – since 1940. We measure absolute mobility by comparing children’s household incomes at age 30 (adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index) with their parents’ household incomes at age 30. We find that rates of absolute mobility have fallen from approximately 90% for children born in 1940 to 50% for children born in the 1980s. Absolute income mobility has fallen across the entire income distribution, with the largest declines for families in the middle class. These findings are unaffected by using alternative price indices to adjust for inflation, accounting for taxes and transfers, measuring income at later ages, and adjusting for changes in household size. Absolute mobility fell in all 50 states, although the rate of decline varied, with the largest declines concentrated in states in the industrial Midwest, such as Michigan and Illinois. The decline in absolute mobility is especially steep – from 95% for children born in 1940 to 41% for children born in 1984 – when we compare the sons’ earnings to their fathers’ earnings. Why have rates of upward income mobility fallen so sharply over the past half-century? There have been two important trends that have affected the incomes of children born in the 1980s relative to those born in the 1940s and 1950s: lower Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates and greater inequality in the distribution of growth. We find that most of the decline in absolute mobility is driven by the more unequal distribution of economic growth rather than the slowdown in aggregate growth rates. When we simulate an economy that restores GDP growth to the levels experienced in the 1940s and 1950s but distributes that growth across income groups as it is distributed today, absolute mobility only increases to 62%. In contrast, maintaining GDP at its current level but distributing it more broadly across income groups – at it was distributed for children born in the 1940s – would increase absolute mobility to 80%, thereby reversing more than two-thirds of the decline in absolute mobility. These findings show that higher growth rates alone are insufficient to restore absolute mobility to the levels experienced in mid-century America. Under the current distribution of GDP, we would need real GDP growth rates above 6% per year to return to rates of absolute mobility in the 1940s. Intuitively, because a large fraction of GDP goes to a small fraction of high-income households today, higher GDP growth does not substantially increase the number of children who earn more than their parents. Of course, this does not mean that GDP growth does not matter: changing the distribution of growth naturally has smaller effects on absolute mobility when there is very little growth to be distributed. The key point is that increasing absolute mobility substantially would require more broad-based economic growth. We conclude that absolute mobility has declined sharply in America over the past half-century primarily because of the growth in inequality. If one wants to revive the “American Dream” of high rates of absolute mobility, one must have an interest in growth that is shared more broadly across the income distribution.

Families of tax filers; Single-earner and dual-earner census families by number of children (final T1 Family File; T1FF).

In 2023, the gross median household income for Asian households in the United States stood at 112,800 U.S. dollars. Median household income in the United States, of all racial and ethnic groups, came out to 80,610 U.S. dollars in 2023. Asian and Caucasian (white not Hispanic) households had relatively high median incomes, while the median income of Hispanic, Black, American Indian, and Alaskan Native households all came in lower than the national median. A number of related statistics illustrate further the current state of racial inequality in the United States. Unemployment is highest among Black or African American individuals in the U.S. with 8.6 percent unemployed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2021. Hispanic individuals (of any race) were most likely to go without health insurance as of 2021, with 22.8 percent uninsured.

In 2023, the real median household income for householders aged 15 to 24 was at 54,930 U.S. dollars. The highest median household income was found amongst those aged between 45 and 54. Household median income for the United States since 1990 can be accessed here.

In 2021, the birth rate in the United States was highest in families that had under 10,000 U.S. dollars in income per year, at 62.75 births per 1,000 women. As the income scale increases, the birth rate decreases, with families making 200,000 U.S. dollars or more per year having the second-lowest birth rate, at 47.57 births per 1,000 women. Income and the birth rate Income and high birth rates are strongly linked, not just in the United States, but around the world. Women in lower income brackets tend to have higher birth rates across the board. There are many factors at play in birth rates, such as the education level of the mother, ethnicity of the mother, and even where someone lives. The fertility rate in the United States The fertility rate in the United States has declined in recent years, and it seems that more and more women are waiting longer to begin having children. Studies have shown that the average age of the mother at the birth of their first child in the United States was 27.4 years old, although this figure varies for different ethnic origins.

In 2022, San Francisco had the highest median household income of cities ranking within the top 25 in terms of population, with a median household income in of 136,692 U.S. dollars. In that year, San Jose in California was ranked second, and Seattle, Washington third.

Following a fall after the great recession, median household income in the United States has been increasing in recent years. As of 2022, median household income by state was highest in Maryland, Washington, D.C., Utah, and Massachusetts. It was lowest in Mississippi, West Virginia, and Arkansas. Families with an annual income of 25,000 and 49,999 U.S. dollars made up the largest income bracket in America, with about 25.26 million households.

Data on median household income can be compared to statistics on personal income in the U.S. released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal income rose to around 21.8 trillion U.S. dollars in 2022, the highest value recorded. Personal income is a measure of the total income received by persons from all sources, while median household income is “the amount with divides the income distribution into two equal groups,” according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Half of the population in question lives above median income and half lives below. Though total personal income has increased in recent years, this wealth is not distributed throughout the population. In practical terms, income of most households has decreased. One additional statistic illustrates this disparity: for the lowest quintile of workers, mean household income has remained more or less steady for the past decade at about 13 to 16 thousand constant U.S. dollars annually. Meanwhile, income for the top five percent of workers has actually risen from about 285,000 U.S. dollars in 1990 to about 499,900 U.S. dollars in 2020.

About 50.4 percent of the household income of private households in the U.S. were earned by the highest quintile in 2023, which are the upper 20 percent of the workers. In contrast to that, in the same year, only 3.5 percent of the household income was earned by the lowest quintile. This relation between the quintiles is indicative of the level of income inequality in the United States. Income inequalityIncome inequality is a big topic for public discussion in the United States. About 65 percent of U.S. Americans think that the gap between the rich and the poor has gotten larger in the past ten years. This impression is backed up by U.S. census data showing that the Gini-coefficient for income distribution in the United States has been increasing constantly over the past decades for individuals and households. The Gini coefficient for individual earnings of full-time, year round workers has increased between 1990 and 2020 from 0.36 to 0.42, for example. This indicates an increase in concentration of income. In general, the Gini coefficient is calculated by looking at average income rates. A score of zero would reflect perfect income equality and a score of one indicates a society where one person would have all the money and all other people have nothing. Income distribution is also affected by region. The state of New York had the widest gap between rich and poor people in the United States, with a Gini coefficient of 0.51, as of 2019. In global comparison, South Africa led the ranking of the 20 countries with the biggest inequality in income distribution in 2018. South Africa had a score of 63 points, based on the Gini coefficient. On the other hand, the Gini coefficient stood at 16.6 in Azerbaijan, indicating that income is widely spread among the population and not concentrated on a few rich individuals or families. Slovenia led the ranking of the 20 countries with the greatest income distribution equality in 2018.

In the U.S., median household income rose from 51,570 U.S. dollars in 1967 to 80,610 dollars in 2023. In terms of broad ethnic groups, Black Americans have consistently had the lowest median income in the given years, while Asian Americans have the highest; median income in Asian American households has typically been around double that of Black Americans.

This statistic shows the total personal income in the United States from 1990 to 2023. The data are in current U.S. dollars not adjusted for inflation or deflation. According to the BEA, personal income is the income that is received by persons from all sources. It is calculated as the sum of wage and salary disbursements, supplements to wages and salaries, proprietors' income with inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments, rental income of persons with capital consumption adjustment, personal dividend income, personal interest income, and personal current transfer receipts, less contributions for government social insurance. Personal income increased to about 23 trillion U.S. dollars in 2023.Personal income Personal income in the United States has risen steadily over the last decades from 5.07 trillion U.S. dollars in 1991 to 23 trillion U.S. dollars in 2023. Personal income includes all earnings including wages, investments, and other sources. Personal income also varied widely across the U.S., where those living in the District of Columbia, on the higher scale, earned an average of 96,873 U.S. dollars per capita and on the lower end of the spectrum, people in Mississippi earned 45,438 U.S. dollars per capita. In the District of Columbia, disposable income averaged some 81,193 U.S. dollars. In total, California earned the most personal income followed by Texas, receiving three trillion U.S. dollars and 1.76 trillion U.S. dollars, respectively. Income tends to vary widely between demographics in the United States. Those with higher education levels tend to earn more money. However, only 25.7 percent of persons with a disability that had a Bachelor's degree or higher were employed in 2020. The Social Security and Supplemental Security Income disability programs provide monetary benefits to the disabled and certain family members.

In the first quarter of 2024, almost two-thirds 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 2.5 percent of the total wealth. Income inequality in the U.S. Despite the idea that the United States is a country where hard work and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps will inevitably lead to success, this is often not the case. In 2023, 7.4 percent of U.S. households had an annual income under 15,000 U.S. dollars. With such a small percentage of people in the United States owning such a vast majority of the country’s wealth, the gap between the rich and poor in America remains stark. The top one percent The United States follows closely behind China as the country with the most billionaires in the world. Elon Musk alone held around 219 billion U.S. dollars in 2022. Over the past 50 years, the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio has exploded, causing the gap between rich and poor to grow, with some economists theorizing that this gap is the largest it has been since right before the Great Depression.

During a 2024 survey, around 19 percent of the Cuban population had a monthly income lower than 67 U.S. dollars, and only 21 percent had an income higher than 417 USD. During that same survey, 61 percent of the respondents stated that they struggle to buy the necessary means to survive. Employment in Cuba Cuba has almost no unemployment at all. In 2022, the unemployment rate for the Caribbean country was 1.16 percent. In that year, over 74 percent of the workforce was estimated to be employees. However, most of them are employed in the public sector, as this segment employs nearly 62.4 percent of the entire labor force. Food insecurity Despite having almost all the entire workforce employed, the Cuban population faces many challenges. In a survey in 2024, 72 percent of the population claimed that the food crisis that the country faces is the main social problem, followed by salaries with 49 percent. The difficulty of accessing food is widespread, as one in two Cubans have admitted to gone without food at least one day in 2023.

In 2023, **** percent of Black people living in the United States were living below the poverty line, compared to *** percent of white people. That year, the total poverty rate in the U.S. across all races and ethnicities was **** percent. Poverty in the United States Single people in the United States making less than ****** U.S. dollars a year and families of four making less than ****** U.S. dollars a year are considered to be below the poverty line. Women and children are more likely to suffer from poverty, due to women staying home more often than men to take care of children, and women suffering from the gender wage gap. Not only are women and children more likely to be affected, racial minorities are as well due to the discrimination they face. Poverty data Despite being one of the wealthiest nations in the world, the United States had the third highest poverty rate out of all OECD countries in 2019. However, the United States' poverty rate has been fluctuating since 1990, but has been decreasing since 2014. The average median household income in the U.S. has remained somewhat consistent since 1990, but has recently increased since 2014 until a slight decrease in 2020, potentially due to the pandemic. The state that had the highest number of people living below the poverty line in 2020 was California.

In the 1st quarter of 2025, personal savings amounted to 3.97 percent of the disposable income in the United States. The personal savings rate peaked in 2020, when U.S. households saved on average over 15 percent of their income. After that, it has remained between three and five percent. Savings during recessions During recessions, households often tend to increase their savings due to economic uncertainty and to compensate for any possible loss of income, which could occur, for example, in the case of falling into unemployment. For example, as seen in this statistic, the savings rate increased noticeably between 2007 and 2012, coinciding with a period of crisis. However, there are also factors that affect the amount of money that households can manage to set aside, such as inflation. Saving can be particularly difficult during periods when the inflation rate has been higher than the growth rates of wages. Savings accounts The value of savings deposits and other checkable deposits in the U.S. amounted to roughly 11 trillion U.S. dollars in early 2025, even after a significant fall in the amount of money placed in those types of instruments. In other words, savings accounts are a type of financial asset that is very widely used among households to save money. Nevertheless, interest rates of savings’ accounts differ a lot from one financial institution to another. Some of the lesser-known online banks had the highest interest rates, while the major banks often offered lower interest rates.

In total, about 59.9 percent of U.S. households paid income tax in 2022. The remaining 40.1 percent of households paid no individual income tax. In that same year, about 47.1 percent of U.S. households with an income between 40,000 and 50,000 U.S. dollars paid no individual income taxes.

In 2019, most of Italians assumed to belong to the middle class. More specifically, 52 percent of individuals defined their social status as middle class. Moreover, 37 percent of Italians stated to be part of the lower social class. Data for social class perception suggested that the occupation with the highest share of upper-class people was being a student. At the same time, freelance professional was most popular job position among middle class citizens, while the majority of unemployed people felt to belong to the lower class.

How much do Italians earn on average?

From 2006 to 2015, gross household disposable income per capita in Italy was fluctuating with no precise pattern. In the next three years, however, gross income per capita steadily increased until peaking above 31 thousand U.S. dollars in 2018. This figure put Italy at the 17th place in the ranking of OECD countries with the gross disposable income per household.

Income inequalities in Italy

National average figures can be quite misleading. In Italy, substantial economic differences across regions and also due to gender can be observed. Inhabitants of the South and the Islands earn on average around ten thousand euros less annually than Italians from the North East. Moreover, female households’ average net income in 2017 was eight thousand euros smaller than male households’ income.