If Your Household Makes At Least This Much Income, You're Officially 'Upper Class'

The concept of "upper class" is one rife with contradictions. Chief among the troubled areas within this way of thinking is the term itself. The notion of classes based on financial attainment suggests that your salary is the only important aspect of your life, collapsing everything else around your job. In reality, American workers are waking up in droves to the idea that their workplace environment and resulting paycheck should be a facilitator of the life they want to live, not the other way around.

Even so, there's no denying that money makes the world go round, and without a reliable source of income it's impossible to fund the kinds of things you want to do outside of work. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics the average annual wage in the U.S. in 2023 was just over $65,000, but what do those who find themselves in a more well-off financial situation earn? The Pew Research Center found that, as of September 2024, roughly 19% of American adults were considered part of the upper-income tier — or upper class — with an unsurprising 52% of Americans finding themselves in the middle tier. This Pew data also found that $169,800 was the threshold for an upper-income household. These findings were based off data from 2022 and calculated based a three-person household in a metropolitan area. With that in mind, it's possible to explore all the nuances that shape a household's lifestyle within this designation and beyond it.

The findings of the Pew report don't just offer static figures. Instead, it seeks to understand how location and cost-of-living can influence the income level required of these financial demographics. For instance, the San Francisco Bay area is one of the most expensive places to live in the country (even for one bedroom apartments) – with a cost-of-living price level that's 17.9% higher than the national average. As a result, an upper class salary in San Francisco, Oakland, or Berkeley is over $257,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, less expensive places like Jackson, Tennessee (a metropolitan area 13% cheaper to live in than the national average) has lower thresholds for upper-income tiers.

The same can be said for family size. The smaller your family, the smaller your overall financial burden will be. A family of two (perhaps a dual income no kids aka DINK household with both partners earning essentially the national average) living in Pittsburgh can find themselves in the upper class with a household salary of $131,000. Meanwhile a single earner living alone in Pittsburgh is considered upper class with a solo income of $92,500. Shift these numbers to New York City, and you'll fall into the middle class instead (thresholds for two and one person households here are calculated at $157,000 and $111,000, respectively).

It's not enough to just think about the salary you earn, though. Joining the upper class is about more than just earning big money, it's also about the way you spend your dough. Some particularly enlightening statistics about consumer debt that everyone should become familiar with involve your payoff obligation proportions. According to Debt.org, those who earn the highest incomes in America only pay roughly 4.3% of their salary toward their debt obligations while others at the bottom end of the spectrum cough up over 26%.

Changing jobs, and suddenly taking home a much higher salary, isn't guaranteed to revolutionize the way you think about and leverage your money. Lifestyle inflation creep can be a pervasive enemy to those who've found themselves with a sudden windfall. Rather than using the additional cash to invest in retirement accounts or pay off debts, it's tempting to simply start spending more. Plus, if you're already paying as much as a quarter of your income on your current debt burden, not tackling your obligations before you start splurging is a great way to find yourself in the exact same financial hole but with a much larger debt amount. Anyone can be loose with their budget and splurge on unnecessary purchases that put them in financial jeopardy. So gaining entry to and remaining a part of the upper class isn't just about earning more, it also requires you to be smart with your money so that you can actually live an enriched life.