Median household income by state, 2015 to 2023

The median state's median household income reached $74,632 in 2023, from $54,736 in 2015, a 36.4 percent rise in current dollars. The 2023 spread runs from Mississippi at $54,203 to the District of Columbia at $108,210, the only jurisdiction above $100,000; Massachusetts leads the states at $99,858.

How it is measured

The figures are median household income from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey one-year estimates: one value per state per year, in that year's dollars, with half of the state's households earning more and half less. Nothing here is adjusted for inflation. The ACS did not publish one-year estimates for 2020, so that year is an honest gap. Each box in the chart is a Tukey summary of all 51 values for the year: the box spans the middle half of the states (25th to 75th percentile), the line inside is the median state, and the whiskers reach the highest and lowest.

What the boxes show

The whole distribution moved up every year, and it moved apart in dollars while holding its shape in proportion. The gap between the highest and lowest jurisdiction grew from $35,254 in 2015 to $54,007 in 2023, up 53 percent; the ratio between them stayed close to two to one the whole window (1.87 in 2015, 2.00 in 2023). The fastest-growing states were Idaho (+55.2 percent), Arizona (+50.1), and Utah (+48.5); the slowest were Alaska (+18.1), Wyoming (+20.3), and North Dakota (+26.4).