The median income among U.S. households was $87,460 in 2025, the highest recorded by the Census Bureau since it began tracking the measurement in 1967.
Median income represents a point at which half of all U.S. incomes are above and below it.
The figure, which is adjusted for inflation, represents a 2.6% increase from 2024, when the median income was $85,210. Census officials said Tuesday that the 2024 figure was not “statistically different” from the previous all-time high median income of $85,320 recorded for 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The poverty line for 2025 for a family of four was $32,970, census officials said, with a national poverty rate of 10.2%, down by half a percent year-over-year, and 34.5 million people considered to be living in poverty.
When accounting for taxes, however, the 2025 real household median income did not set the all-time record.
The U.S. post-tax median income for 2025 was $76,060, which represented 3.1% year-over-year growth compared to 2024 but did not beat out the post-tax median income recorded for 2020 and 2021, when Americans received stimulus payments and other credits, census officials said.
The increase in American median incomes since 1967, when the median income was $56,230, is driven more by growth at the top of the country’s income distribution as opposed to the middle or the bottom of the distribution, with disparities in income widening over time.
Pre-tax household incomes in the 90th percentile grew by 121% between 1967 and 2025, compared to around 56% for household incomes in the 10th and 50th percentiles, census officials said.
In 2025, households in the 90th percentile of U.S. incomes made around 13 times more than households in the 10th percentile; in 1967, the 90th percentile households made around 9 times more than households in the 10th percentile, census officials said.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.