Middle Class Income Calculator

How to use this calculator

1. Enter the median income for your metro, state, or country (or use a national median for a quick baseline).
2. Enter your total household income (one income or combined incomes) and your household size.
3. We calculate the lower and upper middle-class bounds (2/3 × median and 2 × median).
4. We size-adjust your income using the square-root scale and compare it with the band.
5. Review the bounds, your size-adjusted income, and the yes/no middle-class flag.

Inputs explained

Median income

A typical household income for your area. Use a current median from Pew, Census, or a similar source for the city, state, or country you care about.

Your household income

The combined gross annual income for your household (one earner or two), before taxes. Include both partners’ income for a two-income scenario.

Household size

Total number of people supported by this income. We divide income by the square root of household size to compare across different family sizes.

When to use it

• Checking whether a one-income vs two-income household falls into a middle-class band for a given city or state.
• Illustrating how adding a second income or changing work hours affects your position relative to local middle-class thresholds.
• Explaining to family, students, or clients how household size and the number of earners affect perceived "middle class" status.
• Benchmarking incomes across different locations before making relocation or remote-work decisions.
• Providing a quick, transparent middle-class check as part of a broader budgeting or financial planning conversation.

Tips & cautions

• Use up-to-date median income data; outdated medians can make you look richer or poorer than you truly are relative to peers.
• Try running the calculator with only one income and then with both incomes to see how a second earner changes your placement.
• Adjust household size when you have additional dependents; larger households often need more income to maintain similar living standards.
• If you want to see the unadjusted picture, temporarily set household size to 1 so that adjusted income equals raw income.
• Remember that this is an income-based snapshot; debt, housing cost, and wealth are not reflected in the middle-class flag.
• Uses a simplified square-root equivalence scale and a static 2/3–2× band; it does not account for detailed cost-of-living differences or housing costs.
• Does not automatically fetch or update medians; you must provide your own median income values from external sources.
• Ignores wealth, debt, and expenses; two households at the same income can feel very different based on debt and local prices.
• Treats all income as pre-tax and does not model tax credits, childcare subsidies, or benefit programs.

Deep dive

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