Use five equal income groups, each containing 20% of families, and compare their income and net worth. Show the top 1% within the highest fifth.
Define economic groups by their share of the population, not a fixed dollar amount. Rank families by income and divide them into five equal groups of 20%. These groups are called quintiles.
Low income: the lowest 20%.
Lower middle income: the 20th to 40th percentiles.
Middle income: the 40th to 60th percentiles.
Upper middle income: the 60th to 80th percentiles.
Upper income: the highest 20%.
The top 1% is part of the highest fifth, not an additional group. Show it separately when concentration at the top matters.
Income is money received over a period. Net worth is accumulated wealth at a point in time. To connect them, keep the families in each income group unchanged and measure how much wealth those same families hold.
Five equal groups: income quintiles
Rank families from lowest to highest income and divide them into five equal groups. Each group contains 20% of families. The dollar boundaries change as incomes change; the percentage boundaries stay the same.
Quintiles are a standard statistical grouping. Here, low, lower middle, middle, upper middle, and upper income name those five ranks. These labels do not define poverty or benefit eligibility.
Income group
Percentile range
Families
Income at upper boundary
Low income
0–20% (20%)
26.99 million
$35,900
Lower middle income
20–40% (20%)
26.99 million
$63,700
Middle income
40–60% (20%)
26.99 million
$102,700
Upper middle income
60–80% (20%)
26.99 million
$174,600
Upper income
80–100% (20%)
26.99 million
No upper limit
United States, 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances: 134.96 million families. Income is for 2024, expressed in 2025 dollars before taxes. Boundaries are approximate, rounded to $100. A family can be one person; these are family counts, not individual people.
Income across the population
Each colored vertical band contains the same 20% of families. The line shows income at each percentile. Both axes are linear.
Showing all five income groups.
Top 1% by income: the 99th–100th percentiles, inside the upper-income fifth. About 1.35 million families, beginning near $1,150,300 per year. This is a subset, not a sixth group added to the five fifths.
Connect income and net worth: the same families
Keep the income groups unchanged. For each income fifth, measure both its share of total income and its share of total net worth. Each row below refers to the same families in both columns.
Group ranked by income
Families
Share of total income
Share of total net worth
Median net worth
Low income 0–20%
20%
3.1%
2.4%
$13,000
Lower middle income 20–40%
20%
6.8%
4.1%
$80,000
Middle income 40–60%
20%
11.4%
7.5%
$204,400
Upper middle income 60–80%
20%
18.5%
13.0%
$385,500
Upper income 80–100%
20%
60.2%
73.0%
$1,605,300
Of the upper fifth: top 1% by income
1%
17.7%
24.0%
$14,039,600
Share of income versus share of wealth
Each bar uses the same linear 0–100% scale. Every row is one income quintile.
Income Net worth
0%25%50%75%100%
Low income (0–20%)
Lower middle income (20–40%)
Middle income (40–60%)
Upper middle income (60–80%)
Upper income (80–100%)
Calculated from the Federal Reserve's 2025 SCF public data using the same family records and survey weights for both measures. Rounded shares may not sum exactly to 100%.
Now rank the same population by net worth instead of income, again in five groups of 20%. The percentage divisions match, but membership can change. A retiree with modest income and substantial wealth can rank low by income and high by net worth.
Net-worth group
Percentile range
Families
Net worth at upper boundary
Share of total net worth
Quintile 1
0–20%
20%
$13,100
-0.2%
Quintile 2
20–40%
20%
$120,500
0.9%
Quintile 3
40–60%
20%
$346,500
3.6%
Quintile 4
60–80%
20%
$1,084,300
10.4%
Quintile 5
80–100%
20%
No upper limit
85.2%
Of the highest fifth: top 1% by net worth
99–100%
1%
No upper limit; begins near $16,269,700
31.3%
The top 1% is contained within the highest 20%; do not add its share again. A negative share in the lowest fifth reflects negative combined net worth.
Use the income-ranked comparison to ask how much wealth different income groups hold. Use the net-worth ranking to identify who holds wealth regardless of income.
A simple example
A policy charges every household $1,000 a year.
For a household receiving $20,000 a year, that is 5% of income.
For a household receiving $100,000 a year, that is 1% of income.
The dollar charge is the same, but the share of income is not. To estimate the total cost for an income group, multiply the charge by the number of affected households. Then consider their accumulated wealth and essential living costs.
Principles
Use quintiles: five groups of 20%, with dollar boundaries reported for a named year rather than fixed permanently.
Keep group membership unchanged when comparing the income and net worth of an income group.
Distinguish income rank from net-worth rank; the same percentile can contain different families.
Show the top 1% separately within the highest fifth, without counting it twice.
Compare how many families a policy affects and how its costs and benefits differ across the groups.
Why this matters
Use consistent groups when comparing who receives income and who holds wealth.
Avoid definitions that become outdated simply because the value of the dollar changes.
Evaluate policy effects using both income and accumulated wealth.
Learn more & discuss
Quintiles are standard statistical groups, each containing one fifth of the population. The low-to-upper labels here describe those relative ranks; they are not universal definitions of social class or poverty. Pew Research Center, for example, defines middle income relative to the median after adjusting for household size, rather than calling only the middle fifth middle income.
All comparison figures here are calculated from the same 2025 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances public summary extract. Income refers to 2024, before taxes, expressed in 2025 dollars. Net worth is measured during the 2025 survey. The survey family is the primary economic unit: a financially interdependent person or couple and others who depend on them. It can contain one person and is not identical to every Census household.
The direct comparison ranks families by actual reported income, including the retirement withdrawals included in the SCF income measure. It then computes income shares, net-worth shares, and median net worth for those same families. The separate net-worth table re-ranks the population by net worth. Its quintiles need not contain the same families as the income quintiles.
Calculations use the summary extract WGT variable, which already divides the original weight by five for the five imputations. The observations are pooled with those weights. Ties crossing a percentile boundary are allocated proportionally so each quintile contains 20% of population weight. Figures are calculated point estimates from the public file, not official published table cells or estimates of sampling error. Dollar boundaries are rounded to $100; ties and rounding mean a dollar boundary alone cannot classify every family exactly.
SCF net worth excludes the capitalized value of Social Security and employer defined-benefit pension promises. This measure differs from the Distributional Financial Accounts used in the earlier comparison. A negative net-worth share is possible for a group with negative combined net worth.
The income chart has linear axes and joins observed percentile values through the 99th percentile. The highest 1% continues beyond that value; it is not assigned a maximum income.
Discussion questions
For individual reflection or classroom discussion. These questions are not graded.
How much of total income and total net worth does each income fifth hold? Why must the families in each row stay the same for this comparison?
Why can a retired family be in a low income quintile and a high net-worth quintile?
How would inflation change dollar boundaries without changing the 20% definition of each quintile?
Why would adding the top 1% to the highest fifth count some families twice?