This statistic shows the median household income in the United States from 1990 to 2023 in 2023 U.S. dollars. The median household income was 80,610 U.S. dollars in 2023, an increase from the previous year. Household incomeThe median household income depicts the income of households, including the income of the householder and all other individuals aged 15 years or over living in the household. Income includes wages and salaries, unemployment insurance, disability payments, child support payments received, regular rental receipts, as well as any personal business, investment, or other kinds of income received routinely. The median household income in the United States varies from state to state. In 2020, the median household income was 86,725 U.S. dollars in Massachusetts, while the median household income in Mississippi was approximately 44,966 U.S. dollars at that time. Household income is also used to determine the poverty line in the United States. In 2021, about 11.6 percent of the U.S. population was living in poverty. The child poverty rate, which represents people under the age of 18 living in poverty, has been growing steadily over the first decade since the turn of the century, from 16.2 percent of the children living below the poverty line in year 2000 to 22 percent in 2010. In 2021, it had lowered to 15.3 percent. The state with the widest gap between the rich and the poor was New York, with a Gini coefficient score of 0.51 in 2019. 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.

A dataset listing the richest zip codes in New York per the most current US Census data, including information on rank and average income.

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 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.

The module was administered as a post-election interview. The resulting data are provided along with voting, demographic, district and macro variables in a single dataset.

CSES Variable List
The list of variables is being provided on the CSES Website to help in understanding what content is available from CSES, and to compare the content available in each module.

Themes:

MICRO-LEVEL DATA:

Identification and study administration variables:
weighting factors; election type; date of election 1st and 2nd round; study timing (post-election study, pre-election and post-election study, between rounds of majoritarian election); mode of interview; gender of interviewer; date questionnaire administered; primary electoral district of respondent; number of days the interview was conducted after the election; language of questionnaire.

Demography:
year and month of birth; gender; education; marital status; union membership; union membership of others in household; business association membership, farmers´ association membership; professional association membership; current employment status; main occupation; socio economic status; employment type - public or private; industrial sector; current employment status, occupation, socio economic status, employment type - public or private, and industrial sector of spouse; household income; number of persons in household; number of children in household under the age of 18; number of children in household under the age of 6; attendance at religious services; religiosity; religious denomination; language usually spoken at home; region of residence; race; ethnicity; rural or urban residence; primary electoral district; country of birth; year arrived in current country.

Survey variables:
perception of public expenditure on health, education, unemployment benefits, defense, old-age pensions, business and industry, police and law enforcement, welfare benefits; perception of improving individual standard of living, state of economy, government's action on income inequality; respondent cast a ballot at the current and the previous election; vote choice (presidential, lower house and upper house elections) at the current and the previous election; respondent cast candidate preference vote at the current and the previous election; difference who is in power and who people vote for; sympathy scale for selected parties and political leaders; assessment of parties on the left-right-scale and/or an alternative scale; self-assessment on a left-right-scale and an optional scale; satisfaction with democracy; party identification; intensity of party identification, institutional and personal contact in the electoral campaigning, in person, by mail, phone, text message, email or social networks, institutional contact by whom; political information questions; expected development of household income in the next twelve month; ownership of residence, business or property or farm or livestock, stocks or bonds, savings; likelihood to find another job within the next twelve month; spouse likelihood to find another job within the next twelve month.

DISTRICT-LEVEL DATA:
number of seats contested in electoral district; number of candidates; number of party lists; percent vote of different parties; official voter turnout in electoral district.

MACRO-LEVEL DATA:
election outcomes by parties in current (lower house/upper house) legislative election; percent of seats in lower house received by parties in current lower house/upper house election; percent of seats in upper house received by parties in current lower house/upper house election; percent of votes received by presidential candidate of parties in current elections; electoral turnout; party of the president and the prime minister before and after the election; number of portfolios held by each party in cabinet, prior to and after the most recent election; size of the cabinet after the most recent election; number of parties participating in election; ideological families of parties; left-right position of parties assigned by experts and alternative dimensions; most salient factors in the election; fairness of the election; formal complaints against national level results; election irregularities reported; scheduled and held date of election; irregularities of election date; extent of election violence and post-election violence; geographic concentration of violence; post-election protest; electoral alliances permitted during the election campaign; existing electoral alliances; requirements for joint party lists; possibility of apparentement and types of apparentement agreements; multi-party endorsements on ballot; votes cast; voting procedure; voting rounds; party lists close, open, or flexible; transferable votes; cumulated votes if more than one can be cast; compulsory voting; party threshold; unit for the threshold; freedom house rating; democracy-autocracy polity IV rating; age of the current regime; regime: type of executive; number of months since last lower house and last presidential election; electoral formula for presidential elections; electoral formula in all electoral tiers (majoritarian, proportional or mixed); for lower and upper houses was coded: number of electoral segments; linked electoral segments; dependent formulae in mixed systems; subtypes of mixed electoral systems; district magnitude (number of members elected from each district); number of secondary and tertiary electoral districts; fused vote; size of the lower house; GDP growth (annual percent); GDP per capita; inflation, GDP Deflator (annual percent); Human development index; total population; total unemployment; TI corruption perception index; international migrant stock and net migration rate; general government final consumption expenditure; public spending on education; health expenditure; military expenditure; central government debt; Gini index; internet users per 100 inhabitants; mobile phone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants; fixed telephone lines per 100 inhabitants; daily newspapers; constitutional federal structure; number of legislative chambers; electoral results data available; effective number of electoral and parliamentary parties.

The module was administered as a post-election interview. The resulting data are provided along with voting, demographic, district and macro variables in a single dataset.

CSES Variable Table
The list of variables is being provided on the CSES Website to help in understanding what content is available from CSES, and to compare the content available in each module.

Themes:

MICRO-LEVEL DATA:

Identification and study administration variables:
weighting factors; election type; date of election 1st and 2nd round; study timing (post-election study, pre-election and post-election study, between rounds of majoritarian election); mode of interview; gender of interviewer; date questionnaire administered; primary electoral district of respondent; number of days the interview was conducted after the election; language of questionnaire.

Demography:
year and month of birth; gender; education; marital status; union membership; union membership of others in household; business association membership, farmers´ association membership; professional association membership; current employment status; main occupation; socio economic status; employment type - public or private; industrial sector; current employment status, occupation, socio economic status, employment type - public or private, and industrial sector of spouse; household income; number of persons in household; number of children in household under the age of 18; number of children in household under the age of 6; attendance at religious services; religiosity; religious denomination; language usually spoken at home; region of residence; race; ethnicity; rural or urban residence; primary electoral district; country of birth; year arrived in current country.

Survey variables:
perception of public expenditure on health, education, unemployment benefits, defense, old-age pensions, business and industry, police and law enforcement, welfare benefits; perception of improving individual standard of living, state of economy, government's action on income inequality; respondent cast a ballot at the current and the previous election; vote choice (presidential, lower house and upper house elections) at the current and the previous election; respondent cast candidate preference vote at the current and the previous election; difference who is in power and who people vote for; sympathy scale for selected parties and political leaders; assessment of parties on the left-right-scale and/or an alternative scale; self-assessment on a left-right-scale and an optional scale; satisfaction with democracy; party identification; intensity of party identification, institutional and personal contact in the electoral campaigning, in person, by mail, phone, text message, email or social networks, institutional contact by whom; political information questions; expected development of household income in the next twelve month; ownership of residence, business or property or farm or livestock, stocks or bonds, savings; likelihood to find another job within the next twelve month; spouse likelihood to find another job within the next twelve month.

DISTRICT-LEVEL DATA:
number of seats contested in electoral district; number of candidates; number of party lists; percent vote of different parties; official voter turnout in electoral district.

MACRO-LEVEL DATA:
election outcomes by parties in current (lower house/upper house) legislative election; percent of seats in lower house received by parties in current lower house/upper house election; percent of seats in upper house received by parties in current lower house/upper house election; percent of votes received by presidential candidate of parties in current elections; electoral turnout; party of the president and the prime minister before and after the election; number of portfolios held by each party in cabinet, prior to and after the most recent election; size of the cabinet after the most recent election; number of parties participating in election; ideological families of parties; left-right position of parties assigned by experts and alternative dimensions; most salient factors in the election; fairness of the election; formal complaints against national level results; election irregularities reported; scheduled and held date of election; irregularities of election date; extent of election violence and post-election violence; geographic concentration of violence; post-election protest; electoral alliances permitted during the election campaign; existing electoral alliances; requirements for joint party lists; possibility of apparentement and types of apparentement agreements; multi-party endorsements on ballot; votes cast; voting procedure; voting rounds; party lists close, open, or flexible; transferable votes; cumulated votes if more than one can be cast; compulsory voting; party threshold; unit for the threshold; freedom house rating; democracy-autocracy polity IV rating; age of the current regime; regime: type of executive; number of months since last lower house and last presidential election; electoral formula for presidential elections; electoral formula in all electoral tiers (majoritarian, proportional or mixed); for lower and upper houses was coded: number of electoral segments; linked electoral segments; dependent formulae in mixed systems; subtypes of mixed electoral systems; district magnitude (number of members elected from each district); number of secondary and tertiary electoral districts; fused vote; size of the lower house; GDP growth (annual percent); GDP per capita; inflation, GDP Deflator (annual percent); Human development index; total population; total unemployment; TI corruption perception index; international migrant stock and net migration rate; general government final consumption expenditure; public spending on education; health expenditure; military expenditure; central government debt; Gini index; internet users per 100 inhabitants; mobile phone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants; fixed telephone lines per 100 inhabitants; daily newspapers; constitutional federal structure; number of legislative chambers; electoral results data available; effective number of electoral and parliamentary parties.

Out of all 50 states, New York had the highest per-capita real gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023, at 90,730 U.S. dollars, followed closely by Massachusetts. Mississippi had the lowest per-capita real GDP, at 39,102 U.S. dollars. While not a state, the District of Columbia had a per capita GDP of more than 214,000 U.S. dollars. What is real GDP? A country’s real GDP is a measure that shows the value of the goods and services produced by an economy and is adjusted for inflation. The real GDP of a country helps economists to see the health of a country’s economy and its standard of living. Downturns in GDP growth can indicate financial difficulties, such as the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, when the U.S. GDP decreased by 2.5 percent. The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on U.S. GDP, shrinking the economy 2.8 percent. The U.S. economy rebounded in 2021, however, growing by nearly six percent. Why real GDP per capita matters Real GDP per capita takes the GDP of a country, state, or metropolitan area and divides it by the number of people in that area. Some argue that per-capita GDP is more important than the GDP of a country, as it is a good indicator of whether or not the country’s population is getting wealthier, thus increasing the standard of living in that area. The best measure of standard of living when comparing across countries is thought to be GDP per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) which uses the prices of specific goods to compare the absolute purchasing power of a countries currency.

In 2024, professionals from the IT industry earned the highest wages in California, Silicon Valley, with an average of nearly 131 thousand U.S. dollars. Other leading states in terms of highest average salary included Baltimore/Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and New York. Overall, tech salaries in Silicon Valley saw a seven percentage point decrease in average compensation compared to the previous year, while the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area saw a growth in average compensation by nearly six percentage points compared to 2023.

In the fiscal year of 2023, the state of California collected a total of 220.59 billion U.S. dollars in tax revenue, the highest of any state. New York collected the second highest amount of taxes in that year, coming in at 125.19 billion U.S. dollars.

In 2023, the real GDP of the Los Angeles metro area amount to around 1.08 trillion U.S. dollars, and increase after 2021. The overall quarterly GDP growth in the United States can be found here. Gross domestic product of Los AngelesWith a population of over 12.8 million inhabitants in 2023, Los Angeles is the second-largest city in America, following only New York. The Los Angeles metro area also ranked second among U.S. metro areas in terms of gross metropolitan product, second again only to New York City metro area, which came in with a GMP of 1.99 trillion U.S. dollars to Los Angeles’ 1.13 trillion U.S. dollars in the fiscal year of 2021. Chicago metro area ranked third with GMP of 757.2 billion U.S. dollars. Additional detailed statistics about GDP in the United States is available here. Despite Los Angeles’ high GDP, L.A. did not do as well as some cities in terms of median household income. Los Angeles ranked 9th with a median household income of 76,135 U.S. dollars annually in 2022. This was slightly higher than the median household income of the United States in 2022, which came in at 74,580 U.S. dollars annually. Located in Southern California, Los Angeles is home to Hollywood, the famous epicenter of the U.S. film and television industries. The United States is one of the leading film markets worldwide, producing 449 films in 2022, many of them produced by Hollywood-based studios. In 2018, movie ticket sales in North America generated over 11.89 billion U.S. dollars in box office revenue. Famous Hollywood actresses earn millions annually, with the best paid, Sofia Vergara, earning 43 million U.S. dollars in 2020. Second on the list was Angelina Jolie with earnings of 35.5 million U.S. dollars.

In 2023, ******* individuals with net assets of at least ** million U.S. dollars were residing in the *************, by far the highest number of any country. By comparison, *****, which had the second highest number of ultra high net worth individuals (UHNWIs), had less than 100,000 individuals with assets amounting to ** million U.S. dollars or more.Place of residence of ultra high net worth individuals The residency of almost half of the world’s ultra high net worth individuals in the United States explains the dominance of North America in regard to the number of ultra high net worth individuals by region. Hong Kong was the city with the most UHNWIs in 2022, followed by New York, London, and Los Angeles. Source of wealth and gender differences A majority of the world's UHNWIs are self-made. However, looking at billionaires, there is a clear difference between men and women; whereas a majority of billionaire men were self-made, a majority of the women had inherited their fortune.