Earning $200,000 a year is considered middle class in 3 states—they're not California or New York
Many Americans made more money in 2023 than the year prior, bringing the national household median income up to $80,610, according to U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey estimates .
Middle class is commonly defined as earning between two-thirds and double the household median income. That means on a national level, the middle class includes households earning between $53,740 and $161,220 a year.
But on a state level, median incomes vary quite widely, as you can see in the map below:
As a result, middle class salaries can look very different from state to state. Here are household incomes that fall in the middle class in each state, plus the District of Columbia:
District of Columbia
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
West Virginia
Two places in the South — neighboring Maryland and the District of Columbia — feature median household incomes above $100,000. These places, as well as nearby Virginia, are historically high-earning , with many government, law, tech and finance workers collecting big salaries. But they are outliers for the region.
The South is the lowest-earning region overall. Half of the states there have median household incomes below $70,000 a year. In Mississippi, for example, the median household income was $55,060 in 2023, the lowest in the nation, according to Census Bureau data .
— Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina — and low minimum wages in others. Only six of the 16 Southern states plus D.C. have state-mandated minimum wages higher than the federal minimum of $7.25.
Georgia's minimum wage is even lower at $5.15, but workers there are entitled to earn the federal minimum rate.
Utah and Massachusetts join the six-figure median clubIn 2022, only Maryland and D.C. had median household incomes above $100,000, but Massachusetts and Utah joined those states in 2023.
When the median household income is at least $100,000, the middle class will include households earning over $200,000. That's the case in Massachusetts, Maryland and Utah, as well as Washington, D.C., where families earn a median of $111,000 — the highest in the country.
In Massachusetts, high-paying industries like biotech, health care and finance, plus a highly educated population , help boost the state's incomes. Over 1 in 5 households in Massachusetts earned over $200,000 in 2023, according to Census Bureau American Community Survey data . Still, about 27% of households there earned below $50,000.
Utah attracts high-earners thanks to a relatively low and flat income tax rate that helps those with big salaries keep more of their paychecks. Its state economy has also been resilient and growing pretty consistently for over a decade, at times expanding faster than the national rate. It ranks No. 6 in CNBC's 2024 rankings of the best state economies .
Still, the Northeast is the highest-earning region in the country. Only two states there — Maine and Pennsylvania — have local median household incomes lower than the national median. In Massachusetts, the highest-earning state, families earn a median of $106,500. No other state in the Northeast had a six-figure median, though New Hampshire came close at $98,780.
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