By 2030, the middle-class population in Asia-Pacific is expected to increase from **** billion people in 2015 to **** billion people. In comparison, the middle-class population of sub-Saharan Africa is expected to increase from *** million in 2015 to *** million in 2030. Worldwide wealth While the middle-class has been on the rise, there is still a huge disparity in global wealth and income. The United States had the highest number of individuals belonging to the top one percent of wealth holders, and the value of global wealth is only expected to increase over the coming years. Around ** percent of the world’s population had assets valued at less than 10,000 U.S. dollars, while less than *** percent had assets of more than one million U.S. dollars. Asia had the highest percentage of investable assets in the world in 2018, whereas Oceania had the highest percentage of non-investable assets. The middle-class The middle class is the group of people whose income falls in the middle of the scale. China accounted for over half of the global population for middle-class wealth in 2017. In the United States, the debate about the middle class “disappearing” has been a popular topic due to the increase in wealth among the top billionaires in the nation. Due to this, there have been arguments to increase taxes on the rich to help support the middle class.

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.

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.

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.

Graph and download economic data for Share of Net Worth Held by the 50th to 90th Wealth Percentiles (WFRBSN40188) from Q3 1989 to Q1 2025 about net worth, wealth, percentile, Net, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Real Median Family Income in the United States (MEFAINUSA672N) from 1953 to 2023 about family, income, median, real, and USA.

This statistic shows the median household income in the United States from 1970 to 2020, by income tier. In 2020, the median household income for the middle class stood at 90,131 U.S. dollars, which was approximately a 50 percent increase from 1970. However, the median income of upper income households in the U.S. increased by almost 70 percent compared to 1970.

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

Graph and download economic data for Real Median Personal Income in the United States (MEPAINUSA672N) from 1974 to 2023 about personal income, personal, median, income, real, 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.

In the financial year 2021, a majority of Indian households fell under the aspirers category, earning between ******* and ******* Indian rupees a year. On the other hand, about ***** percent of households that same year, accounted for the rich, earning over * million rupees annually. The middle class more than doubled that year compared to ** percent in financial year 2005. Middle-class income group and the COVID-19 pandemic During the COVID-19 pandemic specifically during the lockdown in March 2020, loss of incomes hit the entire household income spectrum. However, research showed the severest affected groups were the upper middle- and middle-class income brackets. In addition, unemployment rates were rampant nationwide that further lead to a dismally low GDP. Despite job recoveries over the last few months, improvement in incomes were insignificant. Economic inequality While India maybe one of the fastest growing economies in the world, it is also one of the most vulnerable and severely afflicted economies in terms of economic inequality. The vast discrepancy between the rich and poor has been prominent since the last ***** decades. The rich continue to grow richer at a faster pace while the impoverished struggle more than ever before to earn a minimum wage. The widening gaps in the economic structure affect women and children the most. This is a call for reinforcement in in the country’s social structure that emphasizes access to quality education and universal healthcare services.

Wealth differences between individuals are ubiquitous in modern society, and often serve as the basis for biased social evaluations among adults. The present research probed whether children use cues that are commonly associated with wealth differences in society to guide their consideration of others. In Study 1, 4–5-year-old participants from diverse racial backgrounds expressed preferences for children who were paired with high-wealth cues; White children in Study 1 also matched high-wealth stimuli with White faces. Study 2 conceptually replicated the preference effect from Study 1, and showed that young children (4–6 years) also use material wealth indicators to guide their inferences about people’s relative standing in other domains (i.e., competence and popularity). Study 3 revealed that children (5–9 years) use a broad range of wealth cues to guide their evaluations of, and actions toward, unfamiliar people. Further, biased responses were not attenuated among children whose families were lower in socioeconomic status. Often overlooked by those who study children’s attitudes and stereotypes, social class markers appear to influence evaluations, inferences, and behavior early in development.

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

This activity will no longer be maintained after June 16, 2025. Current lessons are available in the K-12 Classroom Activities Gallery.

This activity uses Map Viewer. ResourcesMapTeacher guide Student worksheetGet startedOpen the map.Use the teacher guide to explore the map with your class or have students work through it on their own with the worksheet.New to GeoInquiriesTM? See Getting to Know GeoInquiries.Science standardsAPES: II – The Living World.APES: III.B – Population. Strategies for sustainability; impacts of population growth.Learning outcomesStudents will determine patterns of wealth distribution globally. Students will identify sustainable suggestions for regions of the world.More activitiesAll Environmental Science GeoInquiriesAll GeoInquiries

India Proportion of People Living Below 50 Percent Of Median Income: % data was reported at 9.800 % in 2021. This records a decrease from the previous number of 10.000 % for 2020. India Proportion of People Living Below 50 Percent Of Median Income: % data is updated yearly, averaging 6.200 % from Dec 1977 (Median) to 2021, with 14 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 10.300 % in 2019 and a record low of 5.100 % in 2004. India Proportion of People Living Below 50 Percent Of Median Income: % data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s India – Table IN.World Bank.WDI: Social: Poverty and Inequality. The percentage of people in the population who live in households whose per capita income or consumption is below half of the median income or consumption per capita. The median is measured at 2017 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) using the Poverty and Inequality Platform (http://www.pip.worldbank.org). For some countries, medians are not reported due to grouped and/or confidential data. The reference year is the year in which the underlying household survey data was collected. In cases for which the data collection period bridged two calendar years, the first year in which data were collected is reported.;World Bank, Poverty and Inequality Platform. Data are based on primary household survey data obtained from government statistical agencies and World Bank country departments. Data for high-income economies are mostly from the Luxembourg Income Study database. For more information and methodology, please see http://pip.worldbank.org.;;The World Bank’s internationally comparable poverty monitoring database now draws on income or detailed consumption data from more than 2000 household surveys across 169 countries. See the Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP) for details (www.pip.worldbank.org).

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.

In 2023, about 26.9 percent of Asian private households in the U.S. had an annual income of 200,000 U.S. dollars and more. Comparatively, around 13.9 percent of Black households had an annual income under 15,000 U.S. dollars.

The Comparative Political Economy Database (CPEDB) began at the Centre for Learning, Social Economy and Work (CLSEW) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE/UT) as part of the Changing Workplaces in a Knowledge Economy (CWKE) project. This data base was initially conceived and developed by Dr. Wally Seccombe (independent scholar) and Dr. D.W. Livingstone (Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto). Seccombe has conducted internationally recognized historical research on evolving family structures of the labouring classes (A Millennium of Family Change: Feudalism to Capitalism in Northwestern Europe and Weathering the Storm: Working Class Families from the Industrial Revolution to the Fertility Decline). Livingstone has conducted decades of empirical research on class and labour relations. A major part of this research has used the Canadian Class Structure survey done at the Institute of Political Economy (IPE) at Carleton University in 1982 as a template for Canadian national surveys in 1998, 2004, 2010 and 2016, culminating in Tipping Point for Advanced Capitalism: Class, Class Consciousness and Activism in the ‘Knowledge Economy’ (https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/tipping-point-for-advanced-capitalism) and a publicly accessible data base including all five of these Canadian surveys (https://borealisdata.ca/dataverse/CanadaWorkLearningSurveys1998-2016). Seccombe and Livingstone have collaborated on a number of research studies that recognize the need to take account of expanded modes of production and reproduction. Both Seccombe and Livingstone are Research Associates of CLSEW at OISE/UT. The CPEDB Main File (an SPSS data file) covers the following areas (in order): demography, family/household, class/labour, government, electoral democracy, inequality (economic, political & gender), health, environment, internet, macro-economic and financial variables. In its present form, it contains annual data on 725 variables from 12 countries (alphabetically listed): Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States. A few of the variables date back to 1928, and the majority date from 1960 to 1990. Where these years are not covered in the source, a minority of variables begin with more recent years. All the variables end at the most recent available year (1999 to 2022). In the next version developed in 2025, the most recent years (2023 and 2024) will be added whenever they are present in the sources’ datasets. For researchers who are not using SPSS, refer to the Chart files for overviews, summaries and information on the dataset. For a current list of the variable names and their labels in the CPEDB data base, see the excel file: Outline of SPSS file Main CPEDB, Nov 6, 2023. At the end of each variable label in this file and the SPSS datafile, you will find the source of that variable in a bracket. If I have combined two variables from a given source, the bracket will begin with WS and then register the variables combined. In the 14 variables David created at the beginning of the Class Labour section, you will find DWL in these brackets with his description as to how it was derived. The CPEDB’s variables have been derived from many databases; the main ones are OECD (their Statistics and Family Databases), World Bank, ILO, IMF, WHO, WIID (World Income Inequality Database), OWID (Our World in Data), Parlgov (Parliaments and Governments Database), and V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy). The Institute for Political Economy at Carleton University is currently the main site for continuing refinement of the CPEDB. IPE Director Justin Paulson and other members are involved along with Seccombe and Livingstone in further development and safe storage of this updated database both at the IPE at Carleton and the UT dataverse. All those who explore the CPEDB are invited to share their perceptions of the entire database, or any of its sections, with Seccombe generally (wseccombe@sympatico.ca) and Livingstone for class/labour issues (davidlivingstone@utoronto.ca). They welcome any suggestions for additional variables together with their data sources. A new version CPEDB will be created in the spring of 2025 and installed as soon as the revision is completed. This revised version is intended to be a valuable resource for researchers in all of the included countries as well as Canada.

ResourcesMapTeacher guide Student worksheetVocabulary and puzzlesSelf-check questionsGet startedOpen the map.Use the teacher guide to explore the map with your class or have students work through it on their own with the worksheet.New to GeoInquiriesTM? See Getting to Know GeoInquiries.AP skills & objectives (CED)Skill 6.A: Identify the scales of analysis presented by maps, quantitative and geospatial data, images, and landscapes.PSO-2.C: Explain how population distribution and density affect society and the environment.PSO-2.F: Explain ways that geographers depict and analyze population composition.Learning outcomesStudents will be able to identify U.S. population data and certain spatial patterns.