Average Income by Age plus Median, Top 1%, and All Income Percentiles

Written by:
PK

In this post are United States individual income brackets by age for 2025. You'll also find average income by age, median, and top 1% by age.

Individual incomes here are limited to Americans who worked (or wanted to work) in the calendar year. Incomes are gross (pre-tax) – and earned between January and December 2024.

If you missed them: we also have research on household incomes and individual incomes.

Individual Income Benchmarks by Age in 2025

Age is an excellent way to break down income comparisons – it's a quick (but pretty good) proxy for experience. While it's not always true, generally, older folks will have more experience in a given field.

(Of course, you can think of the exceptions: career switching, job loss, and so on.)

And – like with other breakdowns of the population – the best summary statistics of income are:

  • Median income
  • Average income
  • Top 1% income

What is the median individual income by age in the United States?

These are the median incomes by age for 2025 in the United States for some selected ages:

  • Age 25: $41,150
  • Age 35: $60,000
  • Age 45: $67,144
  • Age 55: $63,350
  • Age 65: $70,001

Compare those to an overall median individual income of $53,010.

This following table has age 16-75 median income in 2025 in the United States:

AgeMedian Income
16$2,500.00
17$4,000.00
18$7,000.00
19$15,000.00
20$19,000.00
21$23,000.00
22$26,750.00
23$32,000.00
24$35,160.00
25$41,150.00
26$45,000.00
27$48,000.00
28$50,000.00
29$55,000.00
30$52,002.00
31$57,001.00
32$56,085.00
33$58,000.00
34$58,000.00
35$60,000.00
36$62,150.00
37$60,002.00
38$64,136.00
39$63,400.00
40$61,970.00
41$63,520.00
42$62,050.00
43$64,111.00
44$61,308.00
45$67,144.00
46$65,000.00
47$65,000.00
48$66,500.00
49$65,023.00
50$65,000.00
51$65,001.00
52$70,001.00
53$70,000.00
54$65,002.00
55$63,350.00
56$62,690.00
57$64,025.00
58$62,020.00
59$64,501.00
60$62,001.00
61$61,200.00
62$66,020.00
63$65,000.00
64$60,000.00
65$70,001.00
66$57,601.00
67$63,602.00
68$63,172.00
69$67,580.00
70$63,455.00
71$60,883.00
72$72,346.00
73$64,006.00
74$60,500.00
75$61,440.00

What is the average income by age in the United States?

Here are the 2025 average incomes by age for age 25 and ten year intervals:

  • Age 25: $50,484.58
  • Age 35: $82,949.77
  • Age 45: $95,612.79
  • Age 55: $90,986.23
  • Age 65: $101,393.54

The overall average individual income was $77,652.10 in 2025.

This table has every age (16-75) plus workers of that age's average income in 2025:

AgeAverage Income
16$7,980.37
17$10,993.22
18$13,277.44
19$18,735.81
20$22,771.70
21$26,883.38
22$30,495.37
23$39,386.96
24$41,042.00
25$50,484.58
26$53,046.07
27$59,194.59
28$63,382.61
29$73,903.29
30$68,740.93
31$72,764.04
32$71,526.20
33$76,642.06
34$75,868.74
35$82,949.77
36$87,603.47
37$86,864.08
38$86,043.10
39$88,055.47
40$90,657.41
41$91,350.06
42$87,118.40
43$91,843.41
44$86,691.15
45$95,612.79
46$90,412.10
47$94,494.88
48$94,233.84
49$93,510.89
50$93,486.24
51$91,749.46
52$98,663.97
53$99,539.29
54$96,258.54
55$90,986.23
56$93,386.79
57$97,050.11
58$96,625.34
59$103,337.02
60$90,223.81
61$92,650.45
62$94,553.64
63$96,759.20
64$88,656.60
65$101,393.54
66$81,624.87
67$93,165.78
68$93,841.76
69$95,588.95
70$93,423.48
71$98,746.54
72$108,814.39
73$86,332.90
74$100,531.24
75$89,913.43

What is the top 1% individual income by age in the United States?

Here are the summary top 1% income benchmarks starting at 25 years old and moving up a decade at a time:

  • Age 25: $194,750
  • Age 35: $460,011
  • Age 45: $600,003
  • Age 55: $528,575
  • Age 65: $611,820

Treat this data with much more skepticism than median or average. By definition, there are fewer top earners than those near the middle of the earning spectrum. Before you take a single age's measure as "truth", look at a couple adjacent ages for a good feel of what the "actual" 1% might be.

That in mind, here is the chart for top 1% income by age in the United States in 2025:

AgeTop 1% Income
16$71,528.00
17$79,000.00
18$82,000.00
19$85,000.00
20$91,200.00
21$106,000.00
22$130,300.00
23$172,610.00
24$175,002.00
25$194,750.00
26$205,120.00
27$231,828.00
28$300,000.00
29$396,501.00
30$324,648.00
31$279,550.00
32$338,401.00
33$329,700.00
34$354,035.00
35$460,011.00
36$542,180.00
37$532,003.00
38$470,510.00
39$503,450.00
40$483,400.00
41$581,000.00
42$450,007.00
43$600,100.00
44$508,127.00
45$600,003.00
46$488,060.00
47$532,881.00
48$643,300.00
49$623,865.00
50$554,105.00
51$467,000.00
52$606,100.00
53$727,500.00
54$651,450.00
55$528,575.00
56$500,002.00
57$843,000.00
58$765,898.73
59$1,099,999.00
60$585,000.00
61$527,250.00
62$622,027.00
63$600,040.00
64$504,105.00
65$611,820.00
66$356,370.00
67$643,439.00
68$371,220.00
69$584,838.00
70$385,000.00
71$436,145.00
72$533,023.00
73$453,540.00
74$1,134,092.00
75$379,904.00

United States Individual Income Percentiles by Age

Income is all income earned by one individual. That includes:

  • Wage income or earnings
  • Business income
  • Investment income
  • Interest
  • Other income (see the list of all components here)

If you only want to see salary, we have salary by age research too (and a calculator).

Methodology on 2025 United States Age & Income Brackets

This data comes from the United States Census Bureau's Annual ASEC survey. It was released in September 2025.

I then use harmonized data from the University of Minnesota's Minnesota Population Center in R. Citation:

Sarah Flood, Miriam King, Renae Rodgers, Steven Ruggles, J. Robert Warren, Daniel Backman, Etienne Breton, Grace Cooper, Julia A. Rivera Drew, Stephanie Richards, David Van Riper, and Kari C.W. Williams. IPUMS CPS: Version 13.0 [dataset]. Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS, 2025. https://doi.org/10.18128/D030.V13.0

What is your 'worker' screen?

Find the full worker screen methodology in the individual income brackets post.

Income data points and workers by age in 2025

Here's the exhaustive list of data points and the workers they represent for you to make a reasoned call on data quality by age. There are two numbers:

  • The samples or number of "data points", the actual number of people in the survey
  • The estimated workforce that those data points represent (based on the survey weightings)
AgeSamplesEstimated Workforce
165651,172,464
179011,867,435
181,1242,506,998
191,0752,596,087
201,0863,074,481
211,1513,248,104
221,2313,526,629
231,1933,462,192
241,3734,009,731
251,3383,666,202
261,3973,889,903
271,3913,732,000
281,5144,081,514
291,4703,854,364
301,5714,036,968
311,5203,848,955
321,6444,158,073
331,7234,375,700
341,7134,199,002
351,7924,189,129
361,7293,999,495
371,7804,135,759
381,7533,943,666
391,7924,058,342
401,8144,027,872
411,7313,913,136
421,8163,965,228
431,6803,562,465
441,7423,739,729
451,6203,501,918
461,6003,467,469
471,6293,691,285
481,4973,452,602
491,4593,393,375
501,4473,514,894
511,3703,245,147
521,3163,191,420
531,3573,295,072
541,4483,515,476
551,3113,299,273
561,2643,164,371
571,2323,029,095
581,2003,090,333
591,1693,082,332
601,1952,940,538
611,1632,878,953
621,1022,846,776
631,0752,663,255
649412,341,715
658311,970,721
667241,738,278
676561,571,537
685701,418,458
694991,208,534
70409922,142
71372880,331
72310751,194
73307713,968
74253570,307
75230498,023

Is individual income gross or net?

All income by age numbers in this post are gross income, or before tax. If you are comparing an income make sure it is before any tax is taken out.

Analysis of Individual Income by Age Brackets in 2025

This is one of my favorite ways to slice income data. But like the others, it suffers in its complexity. A better way to consume it might be through my companion income percentile by age calculator. There you can filter ages, or compare as many as you like, visually.

      

PK

PK started DQYDJ in 2009 to research and discuss finance and investing and help answer financial questions. He's expanded DQYDJ to build visualizations, calculators, and interactive tools.

PK lives in New Hampshire with his wife, kids, and dog.

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