Wealth across the United States is in flux, with income gaps growing sharper even as median household incomes creep upward. According to 2024 data from the Census Bureau, the U.S. median household income was $83,730, only modestly up from about $82,690 in 2023—showing how gains are rising, but slowly.
Yet that national average masks wide disparities: States like Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, and California show much higher thresholds for what counts as middle class, while in lower-income states the same dollar amount buys far more in terms of cost of living.
These income differences are being shaped by broader economic events. The divergence underscores that while income is increasing broadly, inflation, higher costs, and differing industry performance are eroding what people can buy and the relative strength of state economies. Inflation, while somewhat tamed from its peak, remains above comfort levels in producer prices and key consumer sectors.
In high-income states, housing, taxes, child care, and transportation can erode what looks like high wages. A household that appears well-off in one state may struggle in another due to these living costs. Despite this, the high-income areas often outpace the national average by 25-35% or more, reflecting concentrated high-earning households. In addition, wealth gaps are increasingly driven by asset ownership—home equity has ballooned in many states, boosting net worth for homeowners while renters fall further behind.
What pushes some states to the top? First, the presence of high-wage industries such as finance, biotechnology, health care, information technology, and specialized fields plays a key role. Massachusetts, for example, benefits from biotech and higher education sectors anchored around Boston. Washington D.C., has a large share of government contracting, federal employment, and professional services. States with high concentrations of high-earning households and high education attainment are likely to maintain their lead in wealth and income—so long as their industries remain competitive.
Taken together, the picture is one of a nation where "rich" and "poor" are more meaningfully differentiated by where you live, what you own, and how exposed you are to changing industries—and less so by raw income alone.
To see how these numbers vary nationwide, Stacker examined the economies of all 50 states and Washington D.C., using statistics from the Census Bureau's 2024 1-Year American Community Survey to rank the richest states by median household income. The review also includes statistics on median earnings, employment rate, health insurance coverage, and poverty level.
Editor's note: The data point on median earnings is broken down to highlight the discrepancies between women and men. However, the Census collects data with a binary understanding of sex and gender, not considering other gender identities and potentially conflating sex and gender.
