In the first quarter of 2025, 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 was the country with the most billionaires in the world in 2025. Elon Musk, with a net worth of 342 billion U.S. dollars, was among the richest people in the United States in 2025. 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.

Graph and download economic data for Net Worth Held by the Top 0.1% (99.9th to 100th Wealth Percentiles) (WFRBLTP1246) from Q3 1989 to Q2 2025 about net worth, wealth, percentile, Net, and USA.

In the third quarter of 2024, the top ten percent of earners in the United States held over ** percent of total wealth. This is fairly consistent with the second quarter of 2024. Comparatively, the wealth of the bottom ** percent of earners has been slowly increasing since the start of the *****, though remains low. Wealth distribution in the United States by generation can be found here.

Graph and download economic data for Share of Net Worth Held by the Top 1% (99th to 100th Wealth Percentiles) (WFRBST01134) from Q3 1989 to Q1 2025 about net worth, wealth, percentile, Net, and USA.

In the first quarter of 2025, 51.4 percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by members of the baby boomer generation. In comparison, millennials own around 10.3 percent of total wealth in the U.S. In terms of population distribution, there was almost an equal share of millennials and baby boomers in the United States in 2024.

This research describes the demographic attributes of both rich and poor households, and also the composition of their holdings. The data are drawn from surveys of household wealth conducted for the Federal Reserve Board in 1983, 1989, and 1992, years that approximate the turning points of the 1982-1991 business cycle.

The rapid increase of wealth inequality in the past few decades is one of the most disturbing social and economic issues of our time. Studying its origin and underlying mechanisms is essential for policy aiming to control and even reverse this trend. In that context, controlling the distribution of income, using income tax or other macroeconomic policy instruments, is generally perceived as effective for regulating the wealth distribution. We provide a theoretical tool, based on the realistic modeling of wealth inequality dynamics, to describe the effects of personal savings and income distribution on wealth inequality. Our theoretical approach incorporates coupled equations, solved using iterated maps to model the dynamics of wealth and income inequality. Notably, using the appropriate historical parameter values we were able to capture the historical dynamics of wealth inequality in the United States during the course of the 20th century. It is found that the effect of personal savings on wealth inequality is substantial, and its major decrease in the past 30 years can be associated with the current wealth inequality surge. In addition, the effect of increasing income tax, though naturally contributing to lowering income inequality, might contribute to a mild increase in wealth inequality and vice versa. Plausible changes in income tax are found to have an insignificant effect on wealth inequality, in practice. In addition, controlling the income inequality, by progressive taxation, for example, is found to have a very small effect on wealth inequality in the short run. The results imply, therefore, that controlling income inequality is an impractical tool for regulating wealth inequality.

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.

About this dataset

Context

The dataset presents the mean household income for each of the five quintiles in United States, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. The dataset highlights the variation in mean household income across quintiles, offering valuable insights into income distribution and inequality.

Key observations

• Income disparities: The mean income of the lowest quintile (20% of households with the lowest income) is 16,840, while the mean income for the highest quintile (20% of households with the highest income) is 285,351. This indicates that the top earners earn 17 times compared to the lowest earners.
• *Top 5%: * The mean household income for the wealthiest population (top 5%) is 515,555, which is 180.67% higher compared to the highest quintile, and 3061.49% higher compared to the lowest quintile.

Content

When available, the data consists of estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 2019-2023 5-Year Estimates.

Income Levels:

• Lowest Quintile
• Second Quintile
• Third Quintile
• Fourth Quintile
• Highest Quintile
• Top 5 Percent

Variables / Data Columns

• Income Level: This column showcases the income levels (As mentioned above).
• Mean Household Income: Mean household income, in 2023 inflation-adjusted dollars for the specific income level.

Good to know

Margin of Error

Data in the dataset are based on the estimates and are subject to sampling variability and thus a margin of error. Neilsberg Research recommends using caution when presening these estimates in your research.

Custom data

If you do need custom data for any of your research project, report or presentation, you can contact our research staff at research@neilsberg.com for a feasibility of a custom tabulation on a fee-for-service basis.

Inspiration

Neilsberg Research Team curates, analyze and publishes demographics and economic data from a variety of public and proprietary sources, each of which often includes multiple surveys and programs. The large majority of Neilsberg Research aggregated datasets and insights is made available for free download at https://www.neilsberg.com/research/.

Recommended for further research

This dataset is a part of the main dataset for United States median household income. You can refer the same here

This table contains data on income inequality. The primary measure is the Gini index – a measure of the extent to which the distribution of income among families/households within a community deviates from a perfectly equal distribution. The index ranges from 0.0, when all families (households) have equal shares of income (implies perfect equality), to 1.0 when one family (household) has all the income and the rest have none (implies perfect inequality). Index data is provided for California and its counties, regions, and large cities/towns. The data is from the U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey. The table is part of a series of indicators in the Healthy Communities Data and Indicators Project of the Office of Health Equity. Income is linked to acquiring resources for healthy living. Both household income and the distribution of income across a society independently contribute to the overall health status of a community. On average Western industrialized nations with large disparities in income distribution tend to have poorer health status than similarly advanced nations with a more equitable distribution of income. Approximately 119,200 (5%) of the 2.4 million U.S. deaths in 2000 are attributable to income inequality. The pathways by which income inequality act to increase adverse health outcomes are not known with certainty, but policies that provide for a strong safety net of health and social services have been identified as potential buffers. More information about the data table and a data dictionary can be found in the About/Attachments section.

Income InequalityThe level of income inequality among households in a county can be measured using the Gini index. A Gini index varies between zero and one. A value of one indicates perfect inequality, where only one household in the county has any income. A value of zero indicates perfect equality, where all households in the county have equal income.The United States, as a country, has a Gini Index of 0.47 for this time period. For comparision in this map, the purple counties have greater income inequality, while orange counties have less inequality of incomes. For reference, Brazil has an index of 0.58 (relatively high inequality) and Denmark has an index of 0.24 (relatively low inequality).The 5-year Gini index for the U.S. was 0.4695 in 2007-2011 and 0.467 in 2006-2010. Appalachian Regional Commission, September 2013Data source: U.S. Census Bureau, 5-Year American Community Survey, 2006-2010 & 2007-2011

In the first quarter of 2021, the top one percent in the U.S. owned **** percent of all stocks and mutual funds, while the bottom ** percent owned **** percent. However, **** percent of total debt was owed by the bottom ** percent, compared to the **** percent of debt owed by the top one percent.

The Distributional Financial Accounts (DFAs) provide a quarterly measure of the distribution of U.S. household wealth since 1989, based on a comprehensive integration of disaggregated household-level wealth data with official aggregate wealth measures. The data set contains the level and share of each balance sheet item on the Financial Accounts' household wealth table (Table B.101.h), for various sub-populations in the United States. In our core data set, aggregate household wealth is allocated to each of four percentile groups of wealth: the top 1 percent, the next 9 percent (i.e., 90th to 99th percentile), the next 40 percent (50th to 90th percentile), and the bottom half (below the 50th percentile). Additionally, the data set contains the level and share of aggregate household wealth by income, age, generation, education, and race. The quarterly frequency makes the data useful for studying the business cycle dynamics of wealth concentration--which are typically difficult to observe in lower-frequency data because peaks and troughs often fall between times of measurement. These data will be updated about 10 or 11 weeks after the end of each quarter, making them a timely measure of the distribution of wealth.

In 2023, roughly 1.49 billion adults worldwide had a net worth of less than 10,000 U.S. dollars. By comparison, 58 million adults had a net worth of more than one million U.S. dollars in the same year. Wealth distribution The distribution of wealth is an indicator of economic inequality. The United Nations says that wealth includes the sum of natural, human, and physical assets. Wealth is not synonymous with income, however, because having a large income can be depleted if one has significant expenses. In 2023, nearly 1,700 billionaires had a total wealth between one to two billion U.S. dollars. Wealth worldwide China had the highest number of billionaires in 2023, with the United States following behind. That same year, New York had the most billionaires worldwide.

We quantitatively identify the factors that drive wealth dynamics in the United States and are consistent with its skewed cross-sectional distribution and with social mobility. We concentrate on three critical factors: (i) skewed earnings, (ii) differential saving rates across wealth levels, and (iii) stochastic idiosyncratic returns to wealth. All of these are fundamental for matching both distribution and mobility. The stochastic process for returns which best fits the cross-sectional distribution of wealth and social mobility in the United States shares several statistical properties with those of the returns to wealth uncovered by Fagereng et al. (2017) from tax records in Norway.

Graph and download economic data for Share of Net Worth Held by the Bottom 50% (1st to 50th Wealth Percentiles) (WFRBSB50215) from Q3 1989 to Q2 2025 about net worth, wealth, percentile, Net, and USA.

The data collection describes changes in the distribution of wealth among United States households that occurred between 1983 and 1989 and analyzes the role of several demographic and economic factors in contributing to the changes.

The Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) is normally a triennial cross-sectional survey of U.S. families. The survey data include information on families' balance sheets, pensions, income, and demographic characteristics.

Income Inequality in Walton County, FL was 17.25450 Ratio in January of 2023, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, Income Inequality in Walton County, FL reached a record high of 17.25450 in January of 2023 and a record low of 14.20387 in January of 2020. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for Income Inequality in Walton County, FL - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on September of 2025.

Median Household Income and distribution of households across income brackets for United States Demographics: 2024 Gender & Age Distribution based on the 2024 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey.