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 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.

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.

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 2023, according to the Gini coefficient, household income distribution in the United States was 0.47. 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. The Gini coefficient helps to visualize income inequality in a more digestible way. For example, according to the Gini coefficient, the District of Columbia and the state of New York have the greatest amount of income inequality in the U.S. with a score of 0.51, and Utah has the greatest income equality with a score of 0.43. The Gini coefficient around the world The Gini coefficient is also an effective measure to help picture income inequality around the world. For example, in 2018 income inequality was highest in South Africa, while income inequality was lowest in Slovenia.

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.

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 table describes the wealth distribution of the sector households in the national accounts over different household groups. Households are identified by main source of income, living situation, household composition, age classes of the head of the household, income class by 20% groups, and net worth class by 20% groups.

Data available from: 2015.

Status of the figures: All data are provisional.

Changes as of October 19th 2023: The figures of 2015-2020 are revised, because national accounts figures are changed due to the revision policy of Statistics Netherlands. Results for 2021 are added to the table.

When will new figures be published? New figures will be released in October 2024.

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

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.

In 2023, around 10.3 percent of U.S. private households had an annual income between 35,000 and 49,999 U.S. dollars in the United States. Income levels between 100,000 to 149,999 U.S. dollars made up the largest share of the population at 16.5 percent in 2023.

The OECD Income Distribution database (IDD) has been developed to benchmark and monitor countries' performance in the field of income inequality and poverty. It contains a number of standardised indicators based on the central concept of "equivalised household disposable income", i.e. the total income received by the households less the current taxes and transfers they pay, adjusted for household size with an equivalence scale. While household income is only one of the factors shaping people's economic well-being, it is also the one for which comparable data for all OECD countries are most common. Income distribution has a long-standing tradition among household-level statistics, with regular data collections going back to the 1980s (and sometimes earlier) in many OECD countries.

Achieving comparability in this field is a challenge, as national practices differ widely in terms of concepts, measures, and statistical sources. In order to maximise international comparability as well as inter-temporal consistency of data, the IDD data collection and compilation process is based on a common set of statistical conventions (e.g. on income concepts and components). The information obtained by the OECD through a network of national data providers, via a standardized questionnaire, is based on national sources that are deemed to be most representative for each country.

Small changes in estimates between years should be treated with caution as they may not be statistically significant.

Fore more details, please refer to: https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/IDD-Metadata.pdf and https://www.oecd.org/social/income-distribution-database.htm

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.

Statistics on income inequality based on the Gini index and the p90/p10 ratio on various household income concepts (market income, total income, after-tax income) for Canada, provinces and territories, census divisions and census subdivisions.

Income, consumption and wealth (ICW) statistics are experimental statistics computed by Eurostat through the statistical matching of three data sources: the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), the Household Budget Survey (HBS) and the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). These statistics enable us to observe at the same time the income that households receive, their expenditures and their accumulated wealth.

The annual collection of EU-SILC was launched in 2003 and is governed by Regulation 1700/2019 (previously: Regulation 1177/2003) of the European Parliament and of the Council. The EU-SILC collects cross-sectional and longitudinal information on income. HBS is a survey conducted every 5 years on the basis of an agreement between Eurostat, the Member States and EFTA countries. Data are collected using national questionnaires and, in most cases, expenditure diaries that respondents are asked to keep over a certain period of time. HFCS collects information on assets, liabilities, and to a limited extent income and consumption, of households. The survey is run by National Central Banks and coordinated by the European Central Bank.

This page focuses on the main issues of importance for the use and interpretation of ICW statistics. Information on the primary data sources can be found on the respective EU-SILC and HBS metadata pages and following the links provided in the sections 'related metadata' and 'annexes' below.

Experimental ICW statistics cover six topics: household economic resources, affordability of essential services, saving rates, poverty, household characteristics and taxation. Each topic contains several indicators with a number of different breakdowns, mainly by income quantile, by the age group of the household reference person, by household type, by the educational attainment level of the reference person, by the activity status of the reference person and by the degree of urbanization of the household. The indicators provide information on the joint distribution of income, consumption and wealth and the links between these three economic dimensions. They help to describe households' economic vulnerability and material well-being. They also help to explain the dynamics of wealth inequalities.

All indicators are to be understood to describe households, not persons. Breakdowns by age group, educational attainment level and activity status refer to the household reference person, which is the person with the highest income. The only exception are the tables icw_pov_01, icw_pov_10, icw_pov_11 and icw_pov_12 for which the income, consumption and wealth of households have been equivalised such that equal shares were attributed to each household member. Values in tables icw_aff are calculated for households reporting non-zero values only.

Note on table icw _res_01 and icw_res_02: The indicator “Households” [HH] in icw_res_01 shows the share of households in the selection, which hold the corresponding shares of total disposable income [INC_DISP], consumption expenditure [EXPN_CONS] and net wealth [WLTH_NET] of the entire population. In theory, turning two of the three dimensions [quant_inc, quant_expn, quant_wlth] to TOTAL and the third one to any quintile, should result into a share of 20% of households. Nevertheless, this share is often below or above 20% of the total population of households in the country. The reason for this is that our figures are based on sample surveys. This means that the share of households corresponds indeed to 20% of households in the sample, however when we multiply each household of the sample with its sampling weight, the resulting shares of households in the total population differ from the 20%. If, for example, we disregard the income and wealth of households in our sample, the first consumption quintile contains the 20% of households with lowest consumption in the sample. However, multiplying this selection of households with their corresponding sampling weights may result into a different share of the total population. The “Households” [HH] indicator indicates the real share of households in the population that make up the theoretical quintile.

This table shows the distribution of wealth of households. The figures in this table are broken down to components of wealth and different household characteristics.

Data available from: 2006. The population consists of all private households with income on January 1st of the reporting year.

Status of the figures: The figures for 2006 to 2022 are final. The figures for 2023 are preliminary.

The compilation of the figures has been changed in a number of parts from reporting year 2011 compared to previous years: From 2011, more complete information on bank and saving credits and securities is available. All small amounts are also observed from that moment on. As a result, there are more households with these assets. From 2011, more complete information on debts is available. Education loans and loans from banks are fully observed from that moment on. As a result, there are more households with other loans.

Changes as of 1 November 2024: Update with final figures for 2022 and provisional figures for 2023

When will new figures be published? New figures for 2024 will be published in the fall of 2025.

Note: continuous variables in their original metric, before transformations. SD in parenthesis when applicable.a: women anemia sample, 373735 women in 33 countries.b: children anemia sample, 152485 children with age less than 71 months in 30 countries.c: experience of child mortality sample, 455692 women in 52 countries.Descriptive statistics.

Families of tax filers; Distribution of total income by census family type and age of older partner, parent or individual (final T1 Family File; T1FF).

Data and insights on Wealth Distribution in India - share of wealth, average wealth, HNIs, wealth inequality GINI, and comparison with global peers.