The American Cities Where a Six-Figure Income Is Just Normal

A $100,000 household income still carries symbolic weight in America — but whether it makes you affluent or merely average depends entirely on your address. Nationally, 40.5% of households cross that line. We computed the share for every US city with at least 20,000 residents and found 762 cities — 32.9% of the total — where six-figure households are not the exception but the outright majority.

At the top of the list the line stops meaning anything at all: in Brambleton, VA, 86.0% of all households earn $100K or more. The 100 most concentrated six-figure cities are ranked below.

The 100 Most Six-Figure-Concentrated Cities

Limited to places with at least 20,000 residents.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates.

Where Six Figures Clusters

The geography of the list is the geography of the knowledge economy: commuter suburbs ringing the largest coastal job markets, tech-industry towns, and the professional satellites of state capitals and research hubs. California's dominance (169 of the 762 majority cities) reflects both its salaries and its sheer number of incorporated suburbs. Central cities themselves rarely qualify — their income distributions are too wide — which is the same dynamic that keeps big cities off the richest cities ranking.

The columns to read together are the income share and the home value. In most entries, median home values run several multiples of the national median — many of these cities sit high on our affordability cliff despite their incomes. A majority-six-figure city is usually not a place where residents feel rich; it is a place where $100K is the price of admission.

The Line That Moved

That 40.5% of American households now clear $100K says as much about inflation and dual-earner households as about prosperity — the bracket is not adjusted for local costs, and $100K in a top-ten entry here buys a different life than in rural America. For the mirror image of this analysis — cities with large concentrations at both ends of the income scale — see the income-polarized cities; for the middle of the distribution, every city profile on this site includes its full household income breakdown.

How We Did This Analysis

From ACS household income brackets, we computed the share of households earning $100,000 or more for every US place with at least 20,000 residents, counted those at 50% or above, and ranked the top 100. Shares are of all households regardless of size; income is pre-tax cash income.

All figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates. Because estimates pool five years of survey responses, small differences between closely ranked entries may fall within the survey's margin of error. Learn more on our methodology page or at data.census.gov.