3 min read
One of my favorite data-driven blogs, DQYDJ, recently shared data for 2017 individual income percentiles.
From DQYDJ:
This data is for individuals in the United States, including income earned between January and December of 2017.
Income is defined as all income earned from any source not just from a primary job!
This can be wage income (including multiple jobs), business income, investment income, and all sorts of other ways people earn money.
Here are the income percentile for individuals in 2017 along with the corresponding income:
Interesting Observations
- The median individual income for 2017 was $39,000.
- An individual needed to earn at least $112,115 to be in the top 10% of earners.
- An individual needed to earn at least $300,101 to be in the top 1% of earners.
- If you earned $50,000 in 2017, you earned more than 61% of all individuals.
- If you earned $100,000 in 2017, you earned more than 87% of all individuals.
Visualizing the U.S. Individual Income Percentiles
The following chart gives a visual look at the income percentiles:
Another way to visualize this data is using 100 tiny blocks:
In 2017, 23% of individuals earned less than $20,000:
In 2017, 50% of individuals earned less than $40k:
In 2017, 69% of individuals earned less than $60k:
In 2017, 80% of individuals earned less than $80k:
In 2017, 14% of individuals earned $100k or more:
For a more in-depth look at how these numbers were derived, along with how they compare to 2016 individual income numbers, check out the full post from DQYDJ.
Zach is the author behind Four Pillar Freedom, a blog that teaches you how to build wealth and gain freedom in life.
He quit his day job as a data scientist in 2019 because he was able to earn enough income from profitable websites to replace his salary. He now teaches people how to start and grow their own profitable websites from scratch in the Income Community.
Zach's favorite free financial tool he's been using since 2015 to manage his net worth is Personal Capital. Each month he uses their free Investment Checkup tool and Retirement Planner to track his investments and ensure that he's on the fast track to financial freedom.
His favorite investment platform is M1 Finance, a site that allows him to build a custom portfolio of stocks for free, has no trading or maintenance fees, and even allows him to set up automated target-allocated investments.
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Interesting data. I don’t think I’ve seen it for individuals just household.
I typically see household data as well. It was awesome to see that DQYDJ was able to provide individual income data.
As always, love the visualizations that go along with your post.
Thanks SAHD FIRE!
Is this only for individuals of working age who have a job? How was this measured? Are they including 2 year olds, retirees, etc? I don’t really understand what how this is measured. If it included every individual in the United States then of course there are a lot of people under 15 or over 65 who earn zero pulling these averages way down.
This data is for individuals 15 years or older who earned income in 2017. Income is defined as pre-tax earnings from wages (including multiple jobs), business income, investment income, and any other form of earnings.