Posted on 09/14/2011 11:09:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
According to data just released by the U.S. Census this morning, in 2010, the median income earned by an individual American was $26,197, or rather, 50% of Americans earned more than that amount and 50% earned less than that amount. The average (or mean) income was $38,337.
We've presented the cumulative distribution of the total money income earned by individuals in the United States in the chart below:
So what percentile does your income place you on that chart?
Well, wonder no more! Our latest tool will tell you exactly where you rank among all Americans, or rather, the 211,492,000 Americans over the age of 15 who earned money in 2010, based upon the U.S. Census' data for 2010, for which we modeled the distribution using ZunZun's invaluable 2D Function Finder.
Just enter your annual income into the tool on theclickthrough, and we'll give you a good idea of where you rank among all income earning individuals in the United States, at least for 2010! One last quick note before you start plugging away - our mathematical model tops out with the highest 0.13% of U.S. income earners and bottoms out with the lowest incomes, so entering either very high or very low annual incomes will produce static results.
If you don't work in the United States, you can still find out where you might rank by income in the U.S., but you'll need to convert your income into equivalent U.S. dollars. We recommend using XE's Universal Currency Converter to do that math before you enter your equivalent income in U.S. dollars in our tool above.
You can find out with our "What's Your U.S. Income Ranking?" tool, which is set up with 2009's income data!
Here's a companion chart to go along with the percentile chart we showed above, which shows the cumulative number of thousands of working age Americans who earned the indicated incomes shown on the horizontal axis or less in 2010: 
So, is this all income or earned income? They are very vague on this point.
Here’s one for households:
http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/09/distribution-of-income-for-2010_14.html
I wonder if this adjusted income. I find it surprising that $150K of gross household income puts you in the 91% percentile, or top 9%.
It only shows that top 1% control perhaps 90% of the wealth. 1% and 91% percentile have more in common than 91% and 99%
The lowest quintile of U.S. households have incomes in the $0-$20,000 range. The second quintile is approximately $20,000-$38,000; the third $38,000-$61,000; the fourth, $61,000 to $100,000; and "the rich" -- i.e. the top quintile -- start at $100,000. The top 5% starts at $180,000. Remember, that's household income, so the married schoolteacher couples, each with a $60,000 income, are well into the top quintile. I don't think the teechurs onions tell 'em that, though.
This has been a pet peeve of mine for years. A lot of people with perfectly good upper middle class incomes think they're earning chump change. Somehow, between the press, the democrats, and images of effortless affluence on tv, a substantial portion of the public has been convinced that there's some mysterious army of people out there making middle- to high six figures who can be taxed at will.
It is frustrating to argue politics with a GS-15 federal worker who is earning $130,000, married to a husband earning about the same, who simply cannot process the fact that she is in the top 2% or so of the household income distribution. Not a hypothetical example.
You make a very good point.
People tend to compare themselves to their neighbors and coworkers. Yet those are a function of how much they earn. Everyone feels average because they are near the average of their friends.
Also, government workers feel very confident that the next paycheck is a certain thing. Then they tend to live paycheck to paycheck and never build wealth.
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