Income Percentile Calculator
Enter a household income to see exactly where it ranks — across the United States, within a state, and inside a specific county or city. All three at once, because the same paycheck can sit mid-pack nationally and near the top of your own zip code.
Combined income of everyone in the household, before taxes.
Pick a state to unlock its counties and cities.
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Enter an income above to see how it ranks.
How to read your percentile
A percentile answers one question: what share of households earn less than you do. If your income lands at the 70th percentile, 70% of households in that area report lower income and roughly 30% report more. The 50th percentile is the median — the exact middle of the distribution, and a more honest measure of a "typical" household than the average, which a small number of very high earners can pull upward.
Nationally the median household income is $78,538, which this calculator places at the 50th percentile — the near-perfect agreement is a useful check that the bracket math matches the Census Bureau's own. From there the curve is steep at the bottom and flat at the top: moving from $25,000 to $50,000 climbs about 17 percentile points, while the same $25,000 step from $150,000 to $175,000 moves you far less.
Why the same income ranks differently in different places
Household income varies enormously by geography, so a national percentile alone can be misleading. A household earning $100,000 ranks at roughly the 75th percentile in Mississippi — comfortably in the upper portion of the distribution — but around the 49th percentile in Maryland, where incomes run substantially higher. That is a spread of about 26 percentile points for an identical paycheck.
City-level differences are sharper still, which is why the local selector matters more than the state one. Within a single metro, one suburb's median can be double its neighbor's. The most income-polarized cities analysis walks through where those gaps are widest, and the affordability cliff shows what those incomes actually buy once local home prices are accounted for.
One caveat worth keeping in mind: a percentile is not a cost-of-living adjustment. Ranking in the top quarter of an expensive coastal city does not mean the same standard of living as the top quarter of a low-cost rural county. Pair this with the affordability ratio on any city page — median home value divided by median income — for a fuller picture.
Methodology and limits
Percentiles are computed from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, table B19001, which sorts households into 16 income brackets. Because the published data is grouped rather than a list of individual households, the calculator spreads households uniformly within the bracket containing your income — the same interpolation the Census Bureau uses to derive a median from grouped data.
Two limits are worth stating plainly. First, the top bracket is open-ended: the ACS reports "$200,000 or more" without subdividing it, and about 12.6% of US households fall there. Any income at or above that threshold is reported as a floor ("top 12.6%") rather than a precise rank. Second, county and city options are limited to places with at least 1,000 residents. Below that, an income distribution rests on a few dozen surveyed households and carries margins of error too wide to support a percentile. Full detail is on the methodology page, and term definitions are in the glossary.
Frequently Asked Questions
What income percentile am I in?
Enter your annual pre-tax household income above to see it. For reference, the US median household income is $78,538, which sits at roughly the 50th percentile. A household earning $100,000 is at about the 61th percentile nationally, and $50,000 is near the 32th.
What is a good household income in the US?
There is no single answer, because the same income buys very different lives depending on where you live. A $100,000 household income ranks around the 75th percentile in Mississippi but only about the 49th percentile in Maryland. That is why this calculator reports your national, state, and local percentile side by side.
Is this household income or individual income?
Household income. The Census counts the combined pre-tax income of everyone aged 15 and older living at the same address, whether or not they are related. A two-earner household is compared against other households, not against individual workers, so a dual-income couple will usually rank higher here than either partner would on a personal-income basis.
What counts as income in this calculation?
The ACS measures money income before taxes: wages and salaries, self-employment income, interest and dividends, Social Security, retirement and pension income, public assistance, and similar cash receipts. It excludes capital gains, employer-paid benefits, and non-cash assistance such as SNAP or housing vouchers.
How accurate is the top of the range?
The ACS publishes its highest bracket as "$200,000 or more" and does not subdivide it. About 12.6% of US households fall in that group. For any income at or above $200,000, this calculator reports the share of households below that threshold — a floor on your percentile rather than an exact position.
Where does this data come from?
All figures come from the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (table B19001, household income in the past 12 months), covering 127,482,865 households nationally. Read more on our methodology page.