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 Q3 2024 about net worth, wealth, percentile, Net, and USA.

Over 21 million individuals residing in the United States belonged to the global top one percent of ultra high net worth individuals worldwide in 2022. China ranked second, with over five million top one percent wealth holders globally. France followed in third.

This table presents income shares, thresholds, tax shares, and total counts of individual Canadian tax filers, with a focus on high income individuals (95% income threshold, 99% threshold, etc.). Income thresholds are geography-specific; for example, the number of Nova Scotians in the top 1% will be calculated as the number of taxfiling Nova Scotians whose total income exceeded the 99% income threshold of Nova Scotian tax filers. Different definitions of income are available in the table namely market, total, and after-tax income, both with and without capital gains.

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.

In 2022 the top one percent of earners in the United Kingdom accounted for around 10.2 percent of the overall national income of the UK. The share of national income earned by the top one percent increased from 6.8 percent in 1980 to a peak of 14.8 percent in 2007.

Graph and download economic data for Median Personal Income in the United States (MEPAINUSA646N) from 1974 to 2023 about personal income, personal, median, income, and USA.

In January 2025, the top one percent of earners in the United Kingdom received an average pay of 15,882 British pounds per month, compared with the bottom 10 percent of earners who earned 813 pounds a month.

The average pre-tax income of the top ten percent earners in Spain was over 95,500 euros at purchasing power parity (PPP) as of 2022, almost nine times more than the average income of the bottom half earners. Looking at the distribution of national income in Spain, the earnings of the least affluent half of the population equated to 21 percent of the total country income in 2022, 0.1 percentage points less than one decade earlier. Moreover, the top one percent of earners in Spain accounted for over ten percent of the overall national income.

In the third quarter of 2024, the top ten percent of earners in the United States held over 67 percent of total wealth. This is fairly consistent with the second quarter of 2024. Comparatively, the wealth of the bottom 50 percent of earners has been slowly increasing since the start of the 2010s, though remains low. Wealth distribution in the United States by generation can be found here.

Graph and download economic data for Income Before Taxes: Wages and Salaries by Number of Earners: Consumer Units of Two or More People, One Earner (CXU900000LB0705M) from 1984 to 2023 about salaries, tax, wages, consumer, income, persons, 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.

Income of individuals by age group, sex and income source, Canada, provinces and selected census metropolitan areas, annual.

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

Key information about United States Monthly Earnings

• United States Monthly Earnings stood at 4,901 USD in Feb 2025, compared with the previous figure of 4,887 USD in Jan 2025
• US Monthly Earnings data is updated monthly, available from Mar 2006 to Feb 2025, with an average number of 3,469 USD
• The data reached the an all-time high of 4,901 USD in Feb 2025 and a record low of 2,743 USD in Mar 2006

CEIC calculates Monthly Earnings from Average Weekly Earnings multiplied by 4. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics provides Average Weekly Earnings in USD. Monthly Earnings include Private Non Agricultural sector only.


Further information about United States Monthly Earnings

• In the latest reports, US Population reached 341 million people in Dec 2024
• Unemployment Rate of US increased to 4 % in Feb 2025
• The country's Labour Force Participation Rate remained the same rate at 62 % in Feb 2025

In the 3 years to March 2021, black households were most likely out of all ethnic groups to have a weekly income of under £600.

In 2021, the average income of households among Israel's highest one percent of earners, reached 4.7 million Israeli shekels, about 1.2 million U.S. dollars. Moreover, incomes peaked in 2017, due to a one-time tax incentive introduced by the government to release "trapped" capital gains tax. Overall, the average income of wealthy families in the country increased by 62 percent between 2013 and 2021.

Income from capital was the main source of annual household income for the top percentile of earners in Israel during 2021. That year, earnings from capital reached 3.1 million Israeli shekels on average, about 818,000 U.S. dollars, which represented about 66 percent of annual income. Over the period observed, capital income grew significantly, peaking in 2017 at 4.6 million Israeli shekels, about 1.2 million U.S. dollars. The 2017 spike was due to a government decision to implement a one-time tax incentive to release "trapped" capital gains taxes. On the other hand, employment income accounted for almost 28 percent of household earnings among the wealthiest in the country.

Graph and download economic data for Income After Taxes: Income After Taxes by Number of Earners: Consumer Units of Two or More People, One Earner (CXUINCAFTTXLB0705M) from 1984 to 2023 about tax, consumer, income, persons, and USA.

Between 1990 and 2023, the mean household income for the low-paid workers in the lowest quintile went from 15,940 U.S. dollars in 1990 to 17,650 U.S. dollars in 2023, while the mean income of the top five percent increased from 285,000 U.S. dollars to 467,100 U.S. dollars over the same period. The income for this period has been adjusted to the 2023 U.S. dollar value.