In 2024, New York was the state with the greatest gap between rich and poor, with a Gini coefficient score of just under 0.52. Although not a state, District of Columbia was among the highest Gini coefficients in the United States that year. On the other hand, Utah had the lowest Gini score among U.S. states. Overall, income inequality has been rising in the country over recent decades.

In the first quarter of 2025, almost ********** of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. In comparison, the lowest ** percent of earners only owned *** 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 2024, *** 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 *** 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.

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.

In 2024, the Gini coefficient of household income distribution in the United States was 0.49. This figure was at 0.43 in 1990, which indicates an increase in income inequality in the U.S. over the past 30 years. What is the Gini coefficient? The Gini coefficient, or Gini index, is a statistical measure of economic inequality and wealth distribution among a population. A value of zero represents perfect economic equality, and a value of one represents perfect economic inequality. Within the United States, the District of Columbia and the state of New York had the largest income gap between earners by Gini Index of about 0.52. Utah, on the other hand, had the greatest income equality with a score of 0.42. The Gini coefficient around the world The Gini coefficient is also an effective measure of income inequality around the world. In 2024, income inequality was highest in South Africa. Slovakia and Slovenia were on the other end of the scale, with high levels of income equality.

Using a common reduced-form regional growth model framework, an expanded geographic classification of counties, additional years of data, a trio of income inequality metrics, and multiple empirical specifications, this analysis confirms and builds upon the notion that the nature of the relationship between income inequality and economic growth varies across geography (Fallah and Partridge, 2007). A positive relationship between an income Gini coefficient and per capita income growth is observed only in central metro counties with population densities greater than 915 people per square mile or in about 5 percent of all counties, whereas previous research found a positive relationship in all metropolitan counties (27 percent of counties) and a negative relationship in nonmetropolitan counties. Where inequality is in the distribution is also shown to impact this relationship. Inequality in the top and bottom halves of the income distribution has a positive relationship with growth within this 5 percent of counties. However, in most locations (the other 95 percent of the counties), inequality in the bottom half of the income distribution has either no statistical relationship with growth or a positive relationship, while inequality in the top half of the income distribution tends to have a negative relationship. These patterns are relatively stable over time but tend to not be robust to the inclusion of county fixed effects. These results provide some evidence that the mechanisms explaining how this relationship varies across places are more likely associated with agglomeration and market incentives rather than social cohesion. This analysis also highlights the need for a robust research agenda focused on further refining the growth model along with incorporating new data sources and concepts of income inequality.

Graph and download economic data for GINI Index for the United States (SIPOVGINIUSA) from 1963 to 2023 about gini, indexes, and USA.

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 2024, just over 45 percent of American households had an annual income that was less than 75,000 U.S. dollars. On the other hand, some 16 percent had an annual income of 200,000 U.S. dollars or more. The median household income in the country reached almost 84,000 U.S. dollars in 2024. 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. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maryland were among the states with the highest median household income in 2024. In terms of income by race and ethnicity, the average income of Asian households was highest, at over 120,000 U.S. dollars, while the median income among Black households was around half of that figure. What is the U.S. poverty threshold? The U.S. Census Bureau annually updates the poverty threshold based on the income of various household types. As of 2023, the threshold for a single-person household was 15,480 U.S. dollars. For a family of four, the poverty line increased to 31,200 U.S. dollars. There were an estimated 38.9 million people living in poverty across the United States in 2024, which reflects a poverty rate of 10.6 percent.

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 Q2 2025 about net worth, wealth, percentile, Net, and USA.

Estelle Sommeiller is a socio-economist at the Institute for Research in Economic and Social Sciences (IRES) in France. She holds a Ph.D. in economics, jointly awarded by the University of Delaware and the Université Lumière in Lyon, France. Her doctoral dissertation, "Regional Inequality in the United States, 1913-2003", analyses a set of panel data by state cross-sections and annually, using the Statistics of Income publications by the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Sommeiller's theoretical approach was inspired by the economist Thomas Piketty, who pointed out the strong heterogeneity of the top decile in his book "Les hauts revenus en France au XXème siècle. Inégalités et redistributions 1901-1998." and distinguished a certain number of intermediary revenues classes (the fractiles), until the highest 0.01. The same distinction was used by Sommelier, with the use of the desegregation by state as a difference. Two variables were extracted by the author from the publications of the IRS: the number of individual returns and the total income expressed in dollars. Both variables are ranked by size of income and by state. The database represents well the top 10 percent of the income distribution. Sommeiller's Ph.D. thesis covers the period from 1913 to 2003 with deflated measures, using the 2003 dollars value. For the purposes of the paper "The Increasingly Unequal States of America", Sommeiller updated the data by adding the 2004 to 2011 series and excluding the ones from 1913 to 1916. All the measures are expressed in 2011 current dollars. These are the data that we are disseminating here.

Income Inequality in Lake County, IN was 15.56681 Ratio in January of 2023, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, Income Inequality in Lake County, IN reached a record high of 15.56681 in January of 2023 and a record low of 13.13563 in January of 2010. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for Income Inequality in Lake County, IN - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on November of 2025.

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.

Income Inequality in New Haven County, CT was 16.98266 Ratio in January of 2021, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, Income Inequality in New Haven County, CT reached a record high of 16.98266 in January of 2021 and a record low of 14.89356 in January of 2010. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for Income Inequality in New Haven County, CT - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on November of 2025.

Income Inequality in Anchorage Borough/municipality, AK was 12.19914 Ratio in January of 2023, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, Income Inequality in Anchorage Borough/municipality, AK reached a record high of 12.19914 in January of 2023 and a record low of 10.20691 in January of 2011. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for Income Inequality in Anchorage Borough/municipality, AK - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on November of 2025.

Income Inequality in Montgomery County, MD was 15.38085 Ratio in January of 2023, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, Income Inequality in Montgomery County, MD reached a record high of 15.38085 in January of 2023 and a record low of 12.80430 in January of 2010. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for Income Inequality in Montgomery County, MD - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on December of 2025.

Mortality rates in the United States vary based on race, individual economic status and neighborhood. Correlations among these variables in most urban areas have limited what conclusions can be drawn from existing research. Our study employs a unique factorial design of race, sex, age and individual poverty status, measuring time to death as an objective measure of health, and including both neighborhood economic status and income inequality for a sample of middle-aged urban-dwelling adults (N = 3675). At enrollment, African American and White participants lived in 46 unique census tracts in Baltimore, Maryland, which varied in neighborhood economic status and degree of income inequality. A Cox regression model for 9-year mortality identified a three-way interaction among sex, race and individual poverty status (p = 0.03), with African American men living below poverty having the highest mortality. Neighborhood economic status, whether measured by a composite index or simply median household income, was negatively associated with overall mortality (p

The statistic shows a representative survey on the public view on whether the United States population is divided into 'haves' and have-nots'. The survey was regularly done from 1988 to September 2011. In September, 2011, about 45 percent of the respondents say the nation is divided.

Income Inequality in Arkansas County, AR was 13.04343 Ratio in January of 2023, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, Income Inequality in Arkansas County, AR reached a record high of 17.19475 in January of 2019 and a record low of 12.25598 in January of 2013. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for Income Inequality in Arkansas County, AR - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on November of 2025.

Income Inequality in Jefferson Parish, LA was 17.14348 Ratio in January of 2023, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, Income Inequality in Jefferson Parish, LA reached a record high of 17.14348 in January of 2023 and a record low of 13.72062 in January of 2010. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for Income Inequality in Jefferson Parish, LA - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on November of 2025.

This file contains data needed to replicate all time series analyses from my book The Politics of Income Inequality in the United States.