Household Share of Income

This database contains the share of aggregate income and income limits for the 20^th, 40^th, 60^th, 80^th, and 95^th percentiles of households.  Income share is presented as a percentage of aggregate income.  For example, in 2011, the income share for the 95^th percentile for all races is 22.3 percent, indicating that the top 5 percent of households in this demographic group have between one-fourth and one-fifth of aggregate income.  Similarly, the 95^th percentile upper income limit in 2011 ($186,000) reflects the income maximum for this group. 

Years reflect values in March of the following year.  In addition:

• 2013 includes redesigned questions for income and health insurance coverage. All of the approximately 98,000 addresses were eligible to receive the redesigned set of health insurance coverage questions. The redesigned income questions were implemented to a subsample of the 98,000 addresses using a probability split panel design. Approximately 68,000 addresses were eligible to receive a set of income questions similar to those used in the 2013 CPS ASEC and the remaining 30,000 addresses were eligible to receive the redesigned income questions. The source of these 2013 estimates is the portion of the CPS ASEC sample which received the income questions consistent with the 2013 CPS ASEC, approximately 68,000 addresses.
• 2013 R1reflects is the portion of the CPS ASEC sample which received the redesigned income questions, approximately 30,000 addresses. 
• 2017R reflects implementation of an updated CPS ASEC processing system.

Income limits are presented in current dollars.  The number of households is in thousands. Because the Bureau of the Census Bureau has changed demographic categories over time, data are not available for all possible search combinations. For additional information on changes in categories and in the collection and methods used to build this database, see Detailed Household Income Share Background.