Posted on 09/29/2013 7:45:05 AM PDT by Kaslin
Where do you stack up in the distribution of income within the United States?
We can help you answer this question using the data that the U.S. Census Bureau has collected on the total money income earned by individual Americans, as well as for the families and households into which Americans gather themselves!
If you're a visual person, we'll first present the information graphically in chart form and then we'll present a tool where you can get a more precise estimate of what your percentile ranking is within each of these groups. In the charts below, first find the income that applies for you on the horizontal axis, then move directly upward to the curve that defines the cumulative distribution of income. Once you've found your place on S-shaped curve in each chart, look directly to the vertical scale on the left hand side of the chart to determine your approximate U.S. income percentile ranking.
The first chart applies for individual Americans, which includes all people Age 15 or older who received some kind of money income on a regular basis, say from full-time jobs or Social Security benefits, but not for things like food stamps, health benefits, housing assistance, capital gains, etc.. With that being the case, the Census Bureau's data tends to understate the amount of effective income that Americans have, especially at the lower end of the income spectrum:
Our second chart shows how the distribution of income changes when individual Americans are grouped into families, which the Census Bureau defines as being a "group of two people or more (one of whom is the householder) related by birth, marriage, or adoption and residing together":
Our third chart is similar to the families chart, but here, individual Americans have been grouped into households. Households are different from families in that they consist of "all the people who occupy a housing unit", regardless of whether they are related to each other by birth, marriage or adoption, or not, and even a single individual who lives alone is considered to be a distinct household.
So much for the pictures - let's see where you really fit in! To find out where you, your family or your household ranks among each of these categories, just enter your personal income, your family's income, which includes the incomes of your spouse and other family members who live with yout, and also the combined income of just the people who live within the walls of the same household that you do. We'll do some quick math and provide a more precise estimate of the percentage of all American individuals, families and households that you outrank given the incomes you enter.
And as a bonus, we'll also break down the numbers for your Individual income to tell you how you compare to your fellow male and female Americans.
It all starts below! (Unless you're accessing this article through a site that simply republishes our RSS news feed, in which case, you should click through to our site to access a working version of our tool....)
Click for tool here.
For our readers who live outside of the United States, you can still get in on the action if you convert your income from your local currency into U.S. dollars first!
The default data we've presented in the tool above represents the average total money income of U.S. individuals, families and households for the year you select. Oh, and as a bonus, you can also see where you would have fit in the U.S. income distributions we've modeled going back to 2011 by selecting your year of interest (other years may appear in the future!...)
In the tool above, your percentile ranking indicates the percentage of Americans who either share your income or earn less than you do. As such, it tells you what percentage of the population you're above in the income-earning food chain.
For example, a percentile ranking of zero would indicate that you are at the very bottom end of the American income spectrum, while a percentile ranking of 100 indicates that you are effectively at the very top end. A percentile rank of 50.0 would indicate that you're within spitting range of being the middle of all Americans, as our tool should be able to place most people within 0.2% of their actual percentile ranking.
Finally, if you're looking for the income data for this year, please note that the U.S. Census Bureau will report the data it collects for this year sometime in September of next year. The delay isn't all bureaucratic - they send out the surveys for income in March of each year, just as or after most Americans fill out their income taxes for the previous year so their income figures are still fresh in their memories, and then it can take the Census Bureau's statisticians up to six months to sort it all out and make some kind of coherent sense of it all!
U.S. Census Bureau. Current Population Survey. Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) Supplement.Table PINC-01. Selected Characteristics of People 15 Years and Over, by Total Money Income in 2012, Work Experience in 2012, Race, Hispanic Origin, and Sex. [Excel Spreadsheet]. 17 September 2013. Accessed 17 September 2013.
U.S. Census Bureau. Current Population Survey. Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) Supplement.Table PINC-11. Income Distribution to $250,000 or More for Males and Females: 2012. Male. [Excel Spreadsheet]. 17 September 2013. Accessed 17 September 2013.
U.S. Census Bureau. Current Population Survey. Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) Supplement.Table PINC-11. Income Distribution to $250,000 or More for Males and Females: 2012. Female. [Excel Spreadsheet]. 17 September 2013. Accessed 17 September 2013.
U.S. Census Bureau. Current Population Survey. Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) Supplement.Table FINC-07. Income Distribution to $250,000 or More for Families: 2012. [Excel Spreadsheet]. 17 September 2013. Accessed 17 September 2013.
U.S. Census Bureau. Current Population Survey. Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) Supplement.Table FINC-01. Selected Characteristics of Families by Total Money Income in: 2012. [Excel Spreadsheet]. 17 September 2013. Accessed 17 September 2013.
U.S. Census Bureau. Current Population Survey. Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) Supplement.Table HINC-06. Income Distribution to $250,000 or More for Households: 2012. [Excel Spreadsheet]. 17 September 2013. Accessed 17 September 2013.
U.S. Census Bureau. Current Population Survey. Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) Supplement.Table HINC-01. Selected Characteristics of Households by Total Money Income in: 2012. [Excel Spreadsheet]. 17 September 2013. Accessed 17 September 2013.
I am now in the lower 1/3 and sinking fast. If I could find a job, I would unretire.
Can’t get it to work. Clicked through. Twice.
I went to the site, but couldn’t get it to work. Of course, I can figure it out from the charts, but not exact percent.
Uh? I’m in the top 50% of income earners by walking dogs and scooping poop. Interesting...LOL.
Seems like I’m in the middle, but I don’t feel like it.
I hope Obamacare doesn’t cause my wife’s hours to be cut back
Likewise. However, after the last census, I noe
i view the census as a tool of the Left , and inclined to view all of its work with distrust, as flawed.
And that, especially in view of its necessary constitutional functions.
That does sadden me.
To get real percentages, individual incomes need to be adjusted by the cost of living in their area.
$70K is pretty good in a lot of regions of the US, but not much at all in high-cost areas.
I’m in the top 90%.
Top 30% and once the Trillions the Fed has been sinking into making the Market soar comes home to roost, I’ll have to order TP on-line from Argentina and hope they can’t reach me to enforce payment of the debt.
Is there a graph that shows negatives?
Wouldn’t the IRS be a better source of the income levels in America? The census is ignored or fudged by many.
I fall within the 0 to 10% on purpose.;^)
Let’s see a chart comparing 2007 to 2012.
i took a 33% cut in pay at 51yrs old seven years ago when i completely changed careers four years ago we didn't even get a raise and i'm still in the top 50%, so i guess i won't complain...
Reading those charts is near impossible. The “income” horrizontal bar is not equally spaced.
When I worked for the operator of a multiple fast food franchise, a big one, he once told us in a managers meeting that he had not pulled any profit out of the stores for over a year. All the sheeple were talking after the meeting, wringing their hands that they had to work harder(I already worked 60 hrs a week) to improve profitability because the owner wasn’t making profit. I called them the morons they were and pointed out the man never said he wasn’t making money and enlightened them that the last thing he wanted to do was show profit to the IRS.
Bottom 25% for entire household. Neat. /sigh
Ditto.
97.5% for my wife and I, but we’re taxed to death.
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