About half of U.S. adults (52%) lived in middle-income households in 2022, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the most recent available government data. Roughly three-in-ten (28%) were in lower-income households and 19% were in upper-income households.
Our calculator below, updated with 2022 data, lets you find out which group you are in, and compares you with:
- Other adults in your metropolitan area
- U.S. adults overall
- U.S. adults similar to you in education, age, race or ethnicity, and marital status
Find more research about the U.S. middle class on our topic page.
Our latest analysis shows that the estimated share of adults who live in middle-income households varies widely across the 254 metropolitan areas we examined, from 42% in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California, to 66% in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater, Washington. The share of adults who live in lower-income households ranges from 16% in Bismarck, North Dakota, to 46% in Laredo, Texas. The share living in upper-income households is smallest in Muskegon-Norton Shores, Michigan (8%), and greatest in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California (41%).
How the income calculator works
The calculator takes your household income and adjusts it for the size of your household. The income is revised upward for households that are below average in size and downward for those of above-average size. This way, each household’s income is made equivalent to the income of a three-person household. (Three is the whole number nearest to the average size of a U.S. household, which was 2.5 people in 2023.)
Pew Research Center does not store or share any of the information you enter.
We use your size-adjusted household income and the cost of living in your area to determine your income tier. Middle-income households – those with an income that is two-thirds to double the U.S. median household income – had incomes ranging from about $56,600 to $169,800 in 2022. Lower-income households had incomes less than $56,600, and upper-income households had incomes greater than $169,800. (All figures are computed for three-person households, adjusted for the cost of living in a metropolitan area, and expressed in 2022 dollars.)
The following example illustrates how cost-of-living adjustment for a given area was calculated: Jackson, Tennessee, is a relatively inexpensive area, with a price level in 2022 that was 13.0% less than the national average. The San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley metropolitan area in California is one of the most expensive, with a price level that was 17.9% higher than the national average. Thus, to step over the national middle-class threshold of $56,600, a household in Jackson needs an income of only about $49,200, or 13.0% less than the national threshold. But a household in the San Francisco area needs an income of about $66,700, or 17.9% more than the U.S. threshold, to be considered middle class.
The income calculator encompasses 254 of 387 metropolitan areas in the United States, as defined by the Office of Management and Budget . If you live outside of one of these 254 areas, the calculator reports the estimates for your state.
The second part of our calculator asks about your education, age, race or ethnicity, and marital status. This allows you to see how other adults who are similar to you demographically are distributed across lower-, middle- and upper-income tiers in the U.S. overall. It does not recompute your economic tier.
Note: This post and interactive calculator were originally published Dec. 9, 2015, and have been updated to reflect the Center’s new analysis. Former Senior Researcher Rakesh Kochhar and former Research Analyst Jesse Bennett also contributed to this analysis.
The Center recently published an analysis of the distribution of the American population across income tiers. In that analysis, the estimates of the overall shares in each income tier are slightly different, because it relies on a separate government data source and includes children as well as adults.
Pew Research Center designed this calculator as a way for users to find out, based on our analysis, where they appear in the distribution of U.S. adults by income tier, as well as how they compare with others who match their demographic profile.
The data underlying the calculator come from the 2022 American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS contains approximately 3 million records, or about 1% of the U.S. population.
In our analysis, “middle-income” Americans are adults whose annual household income is two-thirds to double the national median, after incomes have been adjusted for household size. Lower-income households have incomes less than two-thirds of the median, and upper-income households have incomes more than double the median. American adults refers to those ages 18 and older who reside in a household (as opposed to group quarters).
In 2022, the national middle-income range was about $56,600 to $169,800 annually for a household of three. Lower-income households had incomes less than $56,600, and upper-income households had incomes greater than $169,800. (Incomes are calculated in 2022 dollars.) The median adjusted household income used to derive this middle-income range is based on household heads, regardless of their age.
These income ranges vary with the cost of living in metropolitan areas and with household size. A household in a metropolitan area with a higher-than-average cost of living, or one with more than three people, needs more than $56,600 to be included in the middle-income tier. Households in less expensive areas or with fewer than three people need less than $56,600 to be considered middle income. Additional details on the methodology are available in our earlier analyses.
