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 the first quarter of 2024, 51.8 percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by members of the baby boomer generation. In comparison, millennials own around 9.4 percent of total wealth in the U.S. In terms of population distribution, there is almost an equal share of millennials and baby boomers in the United States.

Graph and download economic data for Net Worth Held by the Bottom 50% (1st to 50th Wealth Percentiles) (WFRBLB50107) from Q3 1989 to Q1 2025 about net worth, wealth, percentile, Net, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Households; Net Worth, Level (BOGZ1FL192090005Q) from Q4 1987 to Q1 2025 about net worth, Net, households, and USA.

Distribution of household total income in constant 2020 dollars by household type (couple family, one-parent family, non-census family households) and characteristics of household members (number of earners and number of people in different age groups).

Average income of farm families by source and family total income group, unincorporated sector, (dollars unless otherwise noted) for Canada. Data available on an annual basis.

This map shows the predominant household income by county, tract, and block group in the US in 2018. County is symbolized using color for the predominant income range. Tract and block group use color and size to show the predominant income range and count of total households. There are 9 income ranges:Household Income less than $15,000Household Income $15,000-$24,999Household Income $25,000-$34,999Household Income $35,000-$49,999Household Income $50,000-$74,999Household Income $75,000-$99,999Household Income $100,000-$149,999Household Income $150,000-$199,999Household Income $200,000 or greaterThe source of data is Esri's 2018 Demographic estimates. For more information about Esri's demographic data, visit the Updated Demographics documentation.

Distribution of census family total income in constant 2020 dollars by family structure (couples with and without children, male and female lone-parents families), family size, ages of members, and year.

Asset Allocation of Top Wealth Owners: Proportion of Total Net Worth in Stocks, Bonds, and Retirement Accounts.

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.

Dataset consisting of inequality measures for 46 nation states and a global bibliography of all known household expenditure surveys covering the period roughly 1880-1960. Each entry notes when and where the survey was carried out and salient characteristics of the survey such as number of households, whether income and/or expenditure data are collected etc. These bibliographies are organised by six world regions and then by 118 nation states. For a sub-set of the most useful surveys we have estimated various inequality measures from the published data for 46 nation states, organised by world region.This project will calculate new estimates of world inequality in the period from the end of the nineteenth century until the 1960s, based on the results of household expenditure surveys. Our investigations have located a vast cache of household expenditure surveys for the period. Thus far, we have identified around 800 household surveys from around the world, carried out between the 1880s and 1960s, of which around half are of sufficient scope as to be potentially useful for the investigation of inequality. We will extract the reported demographic and expenditure data by income group from these reports and use them to estimate parameters of the income distribution. Using these estimates, we will investigate the changing nature of inequality within a number of key nation states, and also investigate the time path and geography of global inequality 1880-1960. In addition, we would use these data to estimate other indicators of living conditions, such as nutritional attainment, which may provide further insights into the impact of industrialisation on inequality. This project utilised the published reports of household expenditure surveys. These published reports are held at copyright libraries or national statistical offices and were typically part of the output of government departments (for example, the UK Board of Trade). We compiled our bibliographies through library searches and requests to various national statistical offices. Many of these reports are published in English, but a substantial number are only published in the language of the relevant nation state. The published household expenditure survey reports typically include summary tables of grouped data of income, expenditures, and household structure. All of these reports, and the data therein, are already in the public domain, and our bibliography provides details of when and where they were published. From these data we estimated a suite of inequality measures, using three different techniques. The inequality measures are: Gini coefficient, 90/10 percentile ratio, 90/50 percentile ratio, and the 50/10 percentile ratio. These inequality measures were estimated three ways: linear interpolation, the Beta-Lorenz method and a log normal density estimation. Not all published household expenditure survey reports contain sufficient data to estimate inequality measures. Our selection was based simply on whether the reports published the appropriate data. All that we required to estimate inequality were total household income or expenditure grouped by class (and the group average incomes/expenditures) and the total number of households and average household size.

Distribution of total income for persons not in economic families (living alone, living with non-relatives only) in constant 2020 dollars by age, gender, presence of earner, and year.

Distribution of economic family total income in 2020 constant dollars by family structure (couples, one-parent families, presence of children), family size, age of members, and number of earners.

Number of households in Taichung City by gender of head of economically responsible households and by total income group

Average income of farm families by source and family total income group, unincorporated sector, (dollars unless otherwise noted) for Canada. Data available on an annual basis.

Economically Active Population Survey: Family dwellings without employed, by number of unemployed and number of members receiving income. Quarterly. National.

Graph and download economic data for Expenditures: Total Average Annual Expenditures by Deciles of Income Before Taxes: Ninth 10 Percent (81st to 90th Percentile) (CXUTOTALEXPLB1510M) from 2014 to 2023 about percentile, tax, average, expenditures, income, and USA.

In 2023, the gross median household income for Asian households in the United States stood at 112,800 U.S. dollars. Median household income in the United States, of all racial and ethnic groups, came out to 80,610 U.S. dollars in 2023. Asian and Caucasian (white not Hispanic) households had relatively high median incomes, while the median income of Hispanic, Black, American Indian, and Alaskan Native households all came in lower than the national median. A number of related statistics illustrate further the current state of racial inequality in the United States. Unemployment is highest among Black or African American individuals in the U.S. with 8.6 percent unemployed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2021. Hispanic individuals (of any race) were most likely to go without health insurance as of 2021, with 22.8 percent uninsured.

This table is part of a series of tables that present a portrait of Canada based on the various census topics. The tables range in complexity and levels of geography. Content varies from a simple overview of the country to complex cross-tabulations; the tables may also cover several censuses.

The U.S. average family income was 100,800 in 2023. This is significantly higher than the average among black families, which totaled 71,390 U.S. dollars. Family income is the total income earned by all family members who have been living in the household for at least one year and are at least 14 years old.