What is considered upper class?

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You are
Upper class · top 22%

on $120k a year, against a median of $56.9k

Upper class starts at $114k twice the median of $56.9k
Lower incomeunder $37.9kMiddle class$37.9k to $114kUpper classabove $114kYou, $120kLower incomeunder $37.9kMiddle class$37.9k to $114kUpper classabove $114kYou, $120k

The three income bands in this country, on the two thirds to twice the median rule. Your income is the marked rung.

In the United States upper class starts at $114k a year, twice the median of $56.9k. On $120k you are upper class, in the top 22%.

How to use this, and the parts people get wrong
  • The bands come from the country's real income distribution, not from an opinion poll.
  • Enter household income, gross. The middle band is wide by construction, so landing in it is the usual result.
  • Switch country before judging the number: the same salary changes class the moment it crosses a border.

Where the lines actually fall

In the United States the middle class runs from $37.9k to $114k, because the median income is $56.9k. Yours, $120k, is upper class.

$56.9kthe median income there
22%of earners are above you

The bands, in money

Every figure moves with the country you pick.

ClassYearly incomeWho is there
Lower incomeunder $37.9kbottom third of earners, roughly
Middle class$37.9k to $114kthe broad middle
Upper classabove $114ktop of the distribution

Is there an upper-class net worth?

No agreed one, and this page will not invent it. Income has a convention; wealth does not. What can be measured is where you stand: in the United States the median adult holds $124k, the top 10% starts at $1.4m and the top 1% at $9.2m. Anyone quoting a single "upper class net worth" figure is quoting a preference, not a measurement.

Questions people ask

What is considered upper class?
Income above twice the median. In the United States that is $114k a year or more, because the median is $56.9k. The same rule puts the middle class between $37.9k and $114k.
Where does the two-thirds to twice rule come from?
It is the convention Pew Research popularised for splitting a country into lower, middle and upper income, and it travels well because it is defined against each country's own median rather than a fixed dollar figure.
What net worth makes you upper class?
There is no accepted definition, unlike income. What is measurable is the distribution: in the United States the median adult holds $124k, the top 10% begins at $1.4m and the top 1% at $9.2m. Any single 'upper class net worth' number you see quoted is someone's opinion.
Is upper class the same as rich?
No. Upper class here is a statistical band, the top slice of earners in one country. Rich is usually about accumulated wealth and about being far above that band, not just inside it.
Does household size change this?
It should. The convention is normally applied to household income adjusted for size, so a single earner and a family of four on the same money are not in the same place. This page uses the raw figure you type, so treat it as the unadjusted view.

Method and sources

  • The income-band conventionlower, middle and upper income defined against each country's median
  • Harmonised national income and wealth distributionsfitted per-adult distributions anchored to published medians
The bands

Lower income is under two thirds of the country's median, middle class runs from two thirds to twice the median, and upper class is above twice the median. The median for each of 214 countries comes from the same fitted income distributions the percentile tools draw.

What these figures do not cover
  • The band rule is a convention, widely used but not a law.
  • Incomes are per person and unadjusted for household size or tax.
  • No wealth-class thresholds are published here, because no accepted definition exists; the wealth figures are percentiles, not classes.

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