In this post, find an income by city comparison calculator and statistics such as average income by city and median income by city for the United States in 2023. It includes data for 260 metro areas, and summary data for residents outside those metropolitan areas. You can compare or filter on either household or individual income.
Below the calculator, find summary statistics for cities. I estimate the population, number of workers, number of households, and selected income brackets in 2023. The tools and filterable tables on the page contain statistics on household and individual gross (pre-tax) income and the 25%, 75%, and 90% income percentile per city (for each category).
Income Percentile by City Calculator
This household and individual income by city percentile calculator lets you enter an annual income to see how it compares in various metro areas in the United States. If you click or tap in the "Compare Cities" entry field, you can add multiple metropolitan areas to see the income breakdowns for each.
Note: some cities have sufficient data to show all income percentiles, while others only show deciles.
Using the Income Percentile by City Calculator
- First, choose to compare individual income or income earned by a household.
- Next, pick the closest city or metro area (you can also search on state abbreviation).
- Optionally, add any other metro areas to the comparison.
Income Percentile by City Tool Input Options
Here are the fine details on the metro area calculator:
- Income: Gross, pre-tax income earned by one individual or a household (dealer's choice!). Income is from any source on this list.
- Individual or Household: Choose whether you want to compare an individual or household income, to match the income you input.
- City: The metro area where you would like to compare an income.
- Compare Cities: Optionally, add other metro areas to see how an income would compare with the percentiles there.
Warning: A city marked with ˟ lacks sufficient data to show all income percentiles. Even cities that show the top 1% are often pushing the results. Don't look at that data as exact, but "somewhere in the ballpark".
Income Percentile by City Tool Output
There are two primary outputs:
- The visualization of income distribution in your selected city (including any others you add)
- An estimated income percentile (or decile, for metros with fewer survey responses)
Individual Income Percentile by City Statistics
Here are tables with summary statistics for individual income by city. Income is pre-tax, earned between January and December 2022.
Find average income by city, median income by city, population, number of workers, and selected income brackets. Cities with enough data points also show that metro's top 1% individual income.
Use the filters up top to select a city, or add or remove columns in the table by clicking on the column toggles.
Household Income Percentile by City Statistics
In the below filterable table are summary statistics for household income by city. All values are gross, pre-tax income earned between January and December 2022.
Find average income, median income, and selected income brackets for each metro area in the United States. Additionally, find the population and number of metro households if you choose to turn on those columns. Cities with sufficient data also show top 1% household income.
Source and Methodology on the 2023 Income Percentile by City Calculator
Our source for the income percentile by city calculator was IPUMS-CPS:
Sarah Flood, Miriam King, Renae Rodgers, Steven Ruggles, J. Robert Warren, Daniel Backman, Annie Chen, Grace Cooper, Stephanie Richards, Megan Schouweiler, and Michael Westberry. IPUMS CPS: Version 11.0 [dataset]. Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS, 2023. https://doi.org/10.18128/D030.V11.0
For my methodology on incomes and worker definition, see the source articles:
- Average household income (and read the definition of household from the Census.)
- Average individual income
Metro Area and City Definitions and Warnings
Here is the additional data for cities:
- A city in our income definition is a metropolitan area defined by IPUMS.
In previous years, I've used a different variable – but it wasn't available at publish date (and METFIPS will be available going forward). That means this data is not necessarily directly comparable to all metropolitan areas in previous years of this tool. Either description linked above will explain some of the changes.
Additionally, I'll warn you again: there is lots of uncertainty baked into the income statistics. There are generally enough samples for low resolution income distribution estimates (and average and median should be pretty accurate!), but you need to be cautious. Directly from the Census Bureau:
"One set of estimates that can be produced from CPS microdata files should be treated with caution. These are estimates for individual metropolitan areas. Although estimates for the larger areas such as New York, Los Angeles, and so forth, should be fairly accurate and valid for a multitude of uses, estimates for the smaller metropolitan areas (those with populations under 500,000) should be used with caution because of the relatively large sampling variability associated with these estimates."
In the tools, I've set the minimum number of data points to show the top 1% estimate for households or individuals as 300 data points. This is a slightly higher bar for households – sometimes multiple people in the same 300 count are workers. If you check the tables in the household and individual income section above, you can find the number of data points used to guess the brackets.
Past results:
