Here's how much money it takes to be considered middle class in 20 major U.S. cities

The mediate people has been shrinking passim the past 5 decades arsenic much Americans person entered either the precocious oregon little income brackets, according to Pew Research Center. 

The latest information from 2021 shows the stock of the colonisation successful the mediate people continues to hover astir 50%, astir wherever it has been since 2011. Prior to that year, the stock of mediate people Americans had been consistently shrinking since a highest of 61% successful 1971.

Pew defines "middle class" arsenic those earning betwixt two-thirds and doubly the median American household income, which successful 2021 was $70,784, according to the United States Census Bureau. That means American households earning arsenic small arsenic $47,189 and up to $141,568 are technically successful the mediate class.

But different factors similar household size and determination tin alteration what mediate people looks similar for you. Here are the income thresholds for the mediate people successful the 20 astir populous U.S. metros:

Remember, this is based connected conscionable 1 explanation of mediate class. There are different statistical-based definitions of mediate class and an adjacent broader database of much anecdotal definitions.

Generally speaking, anyone who isn't surviving "paycheck-to-paycheck" but couldn't needfully halt moving time and beryllium financially unafraid for the semipermanent mightiness see themselves mediate class.

At slightest fractional of the U.S. big colonisation has consistently identified arsenic mediate oregon upper-middle people since 2002, according to Gallup polling. The canvass does not specify mediate people for respondents, but simply asks if they place arsenic upper, upper-middle, middle, moving oregon little class.

Though the stock of upper-middle and middle-class-identifying adults was larger — astir 63% of adults successful 2003 — earlier the Great Recession, it ne'er fell beneath 50%, and inactive hasn't adjacent done the brief, but sharp, recession caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

As of April 2022, 52% of adults see themselves mediate oregon upper-middle class. And statistically speaking, they could each beryllium correct. But fixed antithetic beingness situations and perceptions of wealth, there's a bully accidental not everyone who feels mediate people really is, and vice-versa.

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