What Is Considered Middle Class in America's Largest Metros?

Income needed to be middle-class in America’s largest metros

Where you live can make a big difference in how much you need to earn to be considered middle class. Take a household earning $94,000 a year. In McAllen, Texas, where the middle-class income range starts at $46,729, that income is twice the lower end of middle-class income. In San Francisco, the same household is only about 50% above the middle-class floor of $62,897.

Check out the table below to see the minimum and maximum middle-income for households of different sizes.

The middle-class income range alone doesn’t tell the whole story. For example, San Francisco has the highest middle-class floor in the U.S., but only one-quarter of households fall below it — significantly less than the national average of about one-third. About 37% of households earn above the middle-class range, the second-highest percentage nationwide.

On the other hand, Miami has a similar middle-class floor, but its income distribution looks very different. Nearly four in 10 Miami households fall below the middle-class threshold, the fourth-highest share among the metros analyzed. A much lower percentage of households there have middle-class-or-greater incomes.

McAllen, Texas presents a different picture. It has the lowest middle-class entry point in the analysis, at $46,729. But about 43% of households still earn less than that amount — the highest share of anywhere.

There are signs of change, however. The percentage of households in McAllen that have middle-class income or greater has increased by 3.3% since 2019.

Household size matters, too

Where you live isn't the only factor that changes what it takes to be middle-class. The number of people supported by an income matters as well.

A one-person U.S. household falls within the middle-class range with an income between $34,407 and $103,222. For a four-person household, the minimum rises to $68,815, and the household doesn't move above the middle-class range until its income exceeds $206,444.

Why a smaller middle class doesn't always mean lower incomes

Nationally, 45.8% of households are within the middle-class range, while 33.4% fall below it and 20.8% are above it.

Looking at all three groups helps explain why a metro has a smaller middle class. A smaller share isn't necessarily a sign that more households are struggling. In San Jose, for example, the middle class is smaller largely because a sizable share of households earn above the range. In New Orleans, the opposite is true: Its middle-class share is below the national number, while a large segment of households earn below the middle-class floor.

Pew Research Center found that the share of Americans living in middle-income households fell from 61% in 1971 to 51% in 2023. The shift occurred in both directions: The share in lower-income households rose from 27% to 30%, while the upper-income share increased from 11% to 19%.

There are also broader regional differences, our analysis found. Metros in the West and Midwest tend to have larger middle-class populations as a share of the household population, while many metros in the Northeast and South have smaller middle classes.

1. Ogden, Utah

Ogden has the largest middle-class population as a percentage of total households, at 54.8% of households. It fits within a broader pattern in Utah: Each of the three largest metro areas in the state is in the top six metros with the largest middle classes overall by percentage of households.

Ogden and Detroit illustrate how two cities having similar middle-class income brackets doesn’t necessarily translate into similar income distributions. Their middle-class floors are nearly identical — $54,593 in Ogden and $54,565 in Detroit — but 45.2% of households are in this income range in Detroit, 9.6 percentage points fewer than in Ogden. (Detroit has a much larger share of households earning below the middle-class threshold.)

One possible explanation lies in Ogden's employment landscape. Levi Pace, a senior research economist at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at The University of Utah, pointed to nearby Hill Air Force Base and its contractors, which create quality military and civilian jobs that attract middle-class families and workers in their prime earning years. Research from the institute found that defense jobs in Utah provided an average of $102,115 in compensation in 2023, about one-third more than the average pay of other jobs in the state.

100. San Jose, California

San Jose sits at the other end of the ranking, with the smallest percentage of middle-class households (33.7%). But it also has the smallest share of households below the middle-class floor, at just 19.3%.

That's because 47% of San Jose households earn more than the middle-class ceiling of $180,219. The metro's middle-class share has fallen by 3.2 percentage points since 2019 as the percentage of households in the lower- and upper-income ranges has grown.

Are you considered middle-class in your state?

The amount households need to earn to fall within the middle class also varies considerably by state.

In Arkansas, the middle-class range is the lowest of anywhere nationally, from $47,296 to $141,888. In California, it’s the highest, from $60,235 to $180,704.

Utah and Idaho have the largest shares of middle-class households, both at 52.2%, followed by South Dakota at 51.8%. Other measures also point to Utah households' relatively high incomes. A 2025 Gardner Institute analysis found that Utah's cost-of-living-adjusted median household income was $98,336, the highest in the nation and nearly 27% above the U.S. figure of $77,719.

The smallest middle-class shares are found in Washington, D.C. (39.7%), New York (42.1%) and Massachusetts (42.6%).

Washington, D.C., and Louisiana exemplify two very different reasons a place can have a smaller middle class. In Washington, 30.8% of households earn above the middle-class range — the highest share in the nation. In Louisiana, 40.4% of households fall below the middle-class floor.

Want to see where your household falls? Use the calculator below to find your middle-class income range based on household size and location.

Navigating a shifting middle class

The same household income can sit near the bottom of the middle-class range in one metro and near the top in another. That difference — and what your income can actually afford locally — is more useful than the "middle-class" label itself.

That becomes especially important when you're considering a move or comparing job offers. A higher salary doesn't necessarily translate to more disposable income if housing and other everyday costs rise along with it.

When comparing your income across locations, consider a few factors:

• Compare the local thresholds: If you're moving somewhere with a significantly higher middle-class floor, such as San Jose or Miami, compare your potential salary with the local range rather than looking at the salary alone.
• Factor in housing: Rent or a mortgage is perhaps the living expense that can change most significantly after a move. A recent report from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies found that 49% of renter households were cost-burdened, while homeowners have faced rising costs for property taxes and insurance. When comparing metros, consider the full cost of housing rather than the purchase price or rent alone. Research where homeownership is most accessible for young people to see how housing affordability differs across markets.
• Look at overall purchasing power: A higher salary doesn't automatically mean more disposable income. ConsumerAffairs' analysis of the best cities for a $100,000 salary shows where the same paycheck can stretch further.

Nationally, the middle-class picture has changed relatively little over the past five years (adjusted for inflation). The bigger differences emerge when you zoom in locally. Local cost differences can substantially change what the same income buys from one place to another — something important to consider when comparing job offers, planning a move or setting financial goals.

Methodology

To determine what income is considered middle-class in the largest U.S. metro areas and in every state, the ConsumerAffairs Research Team started with a single national definition and adjusted it according to each metro or state’s cost-of-living differences.

We defined the middle class as households earning between two-thirds and twice the national median household income, the framework used by Pew Research Center. The national median income comes from the U.S. Census Bureau (2024). We then adjusted that national range for local costs using regional price parities from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (2024).

To find the share of households inside each range, we used household income distribution data from the U.S. Census Bureau (2024), and counted the households falling below the lower bound of middle class, between the two bounds, and above the upper bound of middle class. Where a bound fell inside an income bracket rather than on its edge, we distributed that bracket's households evenly to estimate the portion inside the range.

Because a person living alone and a family of four need different incomes for a comparable standard of living, we also report the national middle-class income range adjusted for households of one, two, three and four people. We used the square-root equivalence scale, a commonly used adjustment for household size, with the 2024 national average household size of 2.5 people as the baseline. This approach accounts for larger households needing more income while sharing costs such as housing and utilities.

For the 2019 comparison, we repeated the calculation using the 2019 U.S. Census data and 2019 price parities from the BEA.

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Questions?

For questions about the data or if you'd like to set up an interview, please contact jrodriguez@consumeraffairs.com.