# 2017 Household Income Percentile Calculator for the United States

November 2nd, 2020 by
PK

We present here a household income percentile calculator for the United States for 2017. Enter a household income and we'll estimate which percentile it fell into, down to the closest .1%. The data was collected in the March 2017 ASEC, so incomes are for full-year January to December 2016. See more in our accompanying work on household income brackets in the United States.

Also on DQYDJ: an individual income by age calculator and the standard individual income calculator. For net worth, try the net worth percentile by age calculator and the standard net worth bracket calculator.

Note: the household income percentile calculator defaults to a logarithmic scale.

## Source and Methodology on the 2017 Household Income Percentile Calculator

Sarah Flood, Miriam King, Steven Ruggles, and J. Robert Warren. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, Current Population Survey: Version 4.0. [dataset]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2015. http://doi.org/10.18128/D030.V4.0.

The data can be extracted and downloaded from here: IPUMS-CPS. For household income percentiles, you should do no filtering whatsoever - merely remove duplicated serials, then compute weighted percentiles for HHINCOME. The final set contains 69,957 data-points representing an estimated 126,519,332 American households. Be very careful with the incomes near the top of the scale; expect them to be well off in either direction starting somewhere around the top 1% or .5%.

## What is the Cutoff to be a 1%er Household in 2017?

Although we often argue that net worth is a better proxy for the "1%" (see our one percent in America article), most often the one-percent refers to income.

To reach the 1% in 2017, an American household would have to earn $430,600.00. Roughly 1,265,193 households made that or more for full year 2016. It isn't appropriate to make a .1% estimate with this rolled up household data (although there is a number in the tool). As the CPS is topcoded and already affects individual income estimates in an extreme way, assortative mating really breaks it for household income. However, the .5% number should be reasonably accurate. To be in the top .5% of American Householde, you would have to make$585,278.

## How Many American Households Made Between $100,000 and$200,000?

Let's work through "$100,000 to$200,000" together so you can (roughly - this is an estimate) answer questions of this type using the tool.

• Households: 126,519,332
• $100,000 Household Income Percentile: 72.5% •$200,000 Household Income Percentile: 93.1%

Now, simply find the proportion of households in range by subtracting, then multiply by the total number:

126,519,332 * (.931 - .725) =

Somewhere around 26,062,982 households in the United States made between $100,000 and$200,000.

## Selected Household Income Percentiles

Please see the household income bracket article for full context. Here's how selected household income brackets changed between 2016 to 2017.

Selected Household Income Percentiles, 2016-2017

Remember, once again, that surveys encompass the entire previous year of data. You're seeing 'full-year' 2015 versus 'full-year' 2016 in the graph.

So there you have it - household incomes to the nearest .1%. Stay tuned for more cuts of income and net worth data, and be sure to subscribe.

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