Median Household Income
The median total income of households in a tract over the preceding twelve months, and its change over time.
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The Census Bureau defines household income as the income "of the householder and all other individuals 15 years old and over in the household, whether they are related to the householder or not." Total income "is the sum of the amounts reported separately for wage or salary income; net self-employment income; interest, dividends, or net rental or royalty income or income from estates and trusts; Social Security or Railroad Retirement income; Supplemental Security Income (SSI); public assistance or welfare payments; retirement, survivor, or disability pensions; and all other income" (ACS Subject Definitions).
Several kinds of receipt are deliberately excluded, among them "capital gains, money received from the sale of property," the value of income "in kind" such as food assistance and housing subsidies, "withdrawal of bank deposits," "money borrowed," "tax refunds," and "gifts and lump-sum inheritances, insurance payments, and other types of lump-sum receipts."
The median "divides the income distribution into two equal parts: one-half of the cases falling below the median income and one-half above the median," and for households "is based on the distribution of the total number of households and families including those with no income."
Income is reported for the twelve months preceding the interview, so within a single 5-year vintage the reference periods of different respondents differ.
Metrics in this family#
Median household income
The current median, taken from the most recent 5-year vintage, in dollars.
Median household income trend
Change in that median over 3, 5, or 10 years, chosen in the tool.
Because income is a dollar amount, its trend is reported as a percentage change. Dollar changes are not comparable between low-income and high-income tracts; percentage changes are.
Considerations#
The Bureau inflation-adjusts income to the final year of each estimate period, using Consumer Price Index factors to bring components "to a reference calendar year." Trends are therefore in real terms and measure change relative to general prices, not nominal pay growth.
The median is computed on a standard distribution whose top interval is "$250,000 or more," so tract medians cannot resolve above that point.
A household median is sensitive to household composition as well as to earnings. A tract that gains single-person households can show a falling median while every individual in it earns more.
ACS 5-year windows overlap. Each vintage shares four of its five years with the vintage before it, so year-over-year movement reflects smoothed rolling estimates rather than independent annual readings. The 5-year and 10-year trends compare vintages whose windows do not overlap; the 3-year trend compares vintages sharing two years and is damped.
Census tract boundaries were redrawn for the 2020 census. Estimates published on earlier boundaries are carried onto current ones before use — see geography.
Tracts with few households carry a wide margin of error, and some have no published median.
References#
- 1ACS Subject Definitionshttps://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/tech_docs/subject_definitions/2024_ACSSubjectDefinitions.pdf