What is the median household income in the United States?
According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income in the United States in 2024 was $81,604. For statistical purposes, in addition to data for total households, the U.S. Census Bureau also groups households into three categories: families, married-couple families, and nonfamily households. Income distributions vary across these categories. Families include households where individuals are married or related to one another. It also includes single-parent households. Meanwhile, married-couple families are a subset of the families category and only include households with married couples, with or without children. Lastly, non-family households include individuals living alone or in other living arrangements, such as with roommates.
How does the median income compare with the average income?
Another commonly used metric to assess household wealth is average household income. In 2024, the average household income in the United States was $114,296. While the median represents the figure where half of all households earn more and half earn less, the average income is the sum of all household incomes divided by the total number of households. Because of how it is calculated, median income is less impacted by very low or very high incomes, making it more representative of the typical household. Meanwhile, the average income can be skewed by the presence of very low and very high incomes.
What does the income distribution look like per group?
Among all households, less than one-third had household incomes below $50,000. Meanwhile, just under a quarter (23.4%) of U.S. households had incomes above $100,000. The median income of married-couple families was $120,217, about $40,000 higher than the median income of all households. In contrast, non-family households had a significantly lower median income at $49,848, about $30,000 less than the median income of all households. A higher proportion of married-couple families (60.4%) had incomes above $100,000, while just over half (52.3%) of nonfamily households had incomes between $25,000 and $99,999.
