About half of U.S. adults (52%) lived in eye-income households in 2018, co-ordinate to a new Pew Enquiry Middle analysis of government information. Roughly three-in-ten (29%) were in lower-income households and xix% were in upper-income households.

Our calculator below, updated with 2018 data, lets you find out which group you are in – first compared with other adults in your metropolitan area and among American adults overall, and then compared with other adults in the United States similar to you in education, age, race or ethnicity, and marital condition.

Our latest analysis shows that the share of adults who live in middle-income households varies widely across the 260 metropolitan areas examined, from 39% in Las Cruces, New United mexican states, to 67% in Ogden-Clearfield, Utah. The share of adults who live in lower-income households ranges from 16% in Ogden-Clearfield to 49% in Las Cruces. The estimated share living in upper-income households is greatest in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California (34%) and the smallest in El Centro, California (seven%).

Lower-income adults, already under significant financial pressure, take been especially vulnerable to the economic fallout from the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, co-ordinate to a Pew Research Center survey conducted April 29-May 5, 2020. The survey found that 36% of lower-income adults and 28% of middle-income adults said they had lost a job or taken a pay cut due to the coronavirus outbreak, compared with 22% of upper-income adults. In a Heart survey conducted in April 2020, only 23% of lower-income adults said they had rainy mean solar day funds that could final three months, compared with 48% of middle-income adults and 75% of upper-income adults.

Pew Research Center designed this calculator as a style for users to see, based on the Center's analysis, where they appear in the distribution of U.Due south. adults by income tier, every bit well as how they compare with others in their ain demographic contour.

In our analysis, "middle-income" Americans are adults whose annual household income is ii-thirds to double the national median, after incomes accept been adapted for household size. Lower-income households take incomes lower than two-thirds of the median, and upper-income households have incomes that are more than double the median.

In 2018, the national heart-income range was nearly $48,500 to $145,500 annually for a household of three. Lower-income households had incomes less than $48,500 and upper-income households had incomes greater than $145,500 (incomes in 2018 dollars).

These income ranges vary with the toll 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 iv or more people needs more than than $48,500 to be included in the middle-income tier. Households in less expensive areas or with less than three people need less than $48,500 to exist considered middle income. Boosted details on the methodology are bachelor in our earlier analyses.

How the income computer works

The estimator takes your household income and adjusts information technology for the size of your household. The income is revised upwards for households that are beneath average in size and downward for those of to a higher place average size. This mode, each household'southward income is made equivalent to the income of a three-person household (the whole number nearest to the boilerplate size of a U.South. household, which was 2.5 in 2018).

Pew Research Middle does not store or share whatsoever of the data you enter.

Your size-adjusted household income and the price of living in your area are the factors nosotros utilise to make up one's mind your income tier. Centre-income households – those with an income that is 2-thirds to double the U.Due south. median household income – had incomes ranging from nearly $48,500 to $145,500 in 2018. Lower-income households had incomes less than $48,500 and upper-income households had incomes greater than $145,500 (all figures computed for 3-person households, adapted for the cost of living in a metropolitan area, and expressed in 2018 dollars).

The following example illustrates how price-of-living aligning for a given area was calculated: Jackson, Tennessee, is a relatively inexpensive area, with a price level in 2018 that was 19.0% less than the national average. The San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metropolitan area in California is ane of the most expensive areas, with a price level that was 31.half dozen% college than the national average. Thus, to step over the national middle-course threshold of $48,500, a household in Jackson needs an income of simply about $39,300, or 19.0% less than the national standard. Simply a household in the San Francisco surface area needs a reported income of about $63,800, or 31.6% more the U.Southward. norm, to join the eye grade.

The income estimator encompasses 260 of some 384 metropolitan areas in the U.Due south., equally divers by the Part of Direction and Upkeep. If you live in an expanse outside of one of these 260 areas, the estimator reports the estimates for your state.

The second part of our estimator asks you lot more than questions about your education, age, race or ethnicity, and marital condition. This allows you to see how other adults who are like to y'all demographically are distributed across lower-, eye- and upper-income tiers in the U.S. overall. It does non recompute your economical tier.

Note: This post and interactive calculator were originally published Dec. 9, 2015, and accept been updated to reflect the Center's new analysis.

Jesse Bennett is a former research annotator focusing on social and demographic trends research at Pew Research Center.

Richard Fry is a senior researcher focusing on economics and educational activity at Pew Research Center.