The United States is the richest country in the world. But that statistic camouflages the more complex truth that the United States has a relatively small number of rich people and a much larger number of poor and working poor people. The average income for the top twenty percent of the population in 2022 was approximately $278,000. The average family income for the bottom 20 percent of the population was approximately $16,000.
When the income data is examined on a more granular level the divides between the poor, the working class, and the wealthy become even starker. The top 5 percent of individual earners had an average income of almost $336,000 in 2021. The same year, the top 1 percent had an average income of almost $820,000. The top .1% earned an average amount of approximately 3.3 million dollars.
