Income in the United States
The median income in the United States is about $65 a day per person (2021 PPP dollars) — richer than 94% of everyone alive. Half of the United States lives on less than that.
The world's own median person — about $7.73 a day — would stand in the bottom 2% of the United States.
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The curve
Daily income per person, log scale, PPP dollars — the same curve the machine walks you across.
What it takes to stand where
Take-home income per person, in today's USD, at each point on the curve of the United States (the machine's convention: household take-home divided by the people it supports).
| Richer than… | per year, per person | per day (PPP $) |
|---|---|---|
| 10% of the United States | $10,081 | $24 |
| 25% of the United States | $16,209 | $38 |
| 50% of the United States | $27,579 | $65 |
| 75% of the United States | $45,648 | $108 |
| 90% of the United States | $70,375 | $167 |
| 99% of the United States | $202,036 | $478 |
Rounded, never inflated: the machine floors "richer than" claims.
The four levels in the United States
How much of the United States and of the world lives on each of four income levels. The cuts are the World Bank's $3.00 (international poverty line) and $8.30 (upper-middle-income line), both 2021 PPP; the top cut, $33, is the machine's own, four times the $8.30 line. The objects are what an income on each level tends to buy across the world's surveys — not a description of any one country.
| Level | per day (PPP $) | What tends to come with it, worldwide | United States | World |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | under $3.00 | a fire to cook on, water carried home from the well, everywhere on foot | 1% | 13% |
| Level 2 | $3.00–$8.30 | a bicycle, a gas canister for the stove, a tap within walking distance | 1% | 39% |
| Level 3 | $8.30–$33 | a motorbike, a gas stove, a bank account | 17% | 32% |
| Level 4 | $33+ | a car, a fridge, hot water from the tap | 81% | 15% |
- Level 1 · under $3.00 a dayUnited States 1% · World 13%a fire to cook on, water carried home from the well, everywhere on foot
- Level 2 · $3.00–$8.30 a dayUnited States 1% · World 39%a bicycle, a gas canister for the stove, a tap within walking distance
- Level 3 · $8.30–$33 a dayUnited States 17% · World 32%a motorbike, a gas stove, a bank account
- Level 4 · $33+ a dayUnited States 81% · World 15%a car, a fridge, hot water from the tap
About 81% of the United States lives on Level 4, $33 a day or more per person; worldwide, roughly one in seven people do.
The line that moved
In the United States, under 1% lived under the $3.00 line at the 1990 survey and 1.1% at the 2024 one — it has barely moved.
Share of the United States under $3.00 a day (2021 prices) at each national survey, World Bank PIP via Our World in Data; the faint line is the world's.
Worldwide, the share under the World Bank's $3.00-a-day line fell from about 43% in 1990 to about 10% today (Our World in Data; the latest years are the Bank's nowcast). Where the lift came, it came the unglamorous way: wages, harvests, workshops.
Who earns what in the United States
8 portraits, not payroll data: each stands roughly where that kind of work typically earns on the curve of the United States.
| the lowest 10% | the earnings of a part-time retail worker — stretching every paycheck |
|---|---|
| 10–25% | the earnings of a home health aide — the first face a client sees each morning |
| 25–45% | the earnings of a delivery driver — who knows every shortcut in the county |
| 45–65% | the earnings of a schoolteacher — with a classroom full of names memorised by day two |
| 65–82% | the earnings of a registered nurse — steady hands, twelve-hour shifts |
| 82–93% | the earnings of a software engineer — somewhere between standups |
| 93–98% | the earnings of a physician — a decade of training behind every diagnosis |
| the highest 2% | the earnings of a surgeon or a senior executive — the far right of a very wide curve |
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Where this comes from
The World Bank's Poverty and Inequality Platform percentile distribution for the United States (survey year 2024), in 2021 PPP dollars; incomes typed in today's money are deflated to 2021 prices with the national CPI and converted with the 2021 consumption-PPP factor. Snapshot fetched September 2026. Full methodology & honesty rules.
Neighbours on the curve
The countries whose median income sits nearest to the United States's — and a few far from it, for scale.