How it works

You enter a household income; the tool tells you the share of US households that earn less. Nothing is uploaded or stored, the math runs entirely in your browser.

The data

Household income percentiles come from the U.S. Census Bureau (CPS ASEC 2026, incomes in 2025): the income distribution in tables HINC-06 and HINC-02 and the selected percentiles in Table 6 of Income in the United States: 2025. The median US household earned $87,460, the 90th percentile was $261,300 and the 95th percentile was $354,000. Census does not publish a 99th percentile, so the top 1% threshold ($659,060) comes from DQYDJ's analysis of the Census survey via IPUMS CPS. DQYDJ's latest estimate, labeled 2025 on its site, covers 2024 incomes. We interpolate between these points.

What it means, and what it doesn't

This is pre-tax household income, not wealth or net worth. It does not adjust for where you live or how many people the income supports, and the same salary feels very different in Manhattan than in rural Mississippi. Treat it as perspective, not a verdict.

By age

The by-age calculator uses the household counts in $5,000 brackets for each age of householder in Census table HINC-02. Census publishes these counts only up to $200,000, so above that the page shows the share of households that age earning $200,000 or more instead of an exact rank.

The global comparison

How you rank against the whole world uses the World Bank Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP) Percentiles dataset. We take the latest survey for each of 172 countries (years 1992 to 2025), weight each of its 100 percentile groups by population and pool them into one world distribution. Values are per person in 2021 PPP dollars, and 100 countries measure consumption rather than income.

Independent project, not affiliated with the U.S. Census Bureau. Content is made with the help of AI tools and reviewed by a person before publishing.