Income by Age Calculator [With Percentiles]

The Income by Age calculator below provides the income percentiles of U.S. households in 2022 for a given age group (e.g. 20-24, 25-29, etc.).

Data comes from the Survey of Consumer Finances.

If you found this calculator helpful, check out my other calculators along with my book, Just Keep Buying, for proven ways to save money and build your wealth.

FAQs/Best Practices

• • Why does the calculator use age groups instead of individual ages?
    • Though the Survey of Consumer Finances is the gold standard for U.S. wealth/income data, it also has its limitations. These are especially true at the upper end of the income spectrum (e.g. 95th percentile or higher) where there are sample size issues. As a result, the 98th percentile income estimate for all the 32 year olds may be quite different from the 98th percentile income estimate for all 33 year olds. However, in the real world, we wouldn’t expect this to be true. By using age groups, we smooth out this statistical noise out to provide a more accurate income percentile estimate.
  • Most percentiles are NOT strongly influenced by outliers.
    • One thing that some people get confused about when seeing data like this is how these numbers are influenced by outliers (e.g. high income households). When calculating something like the “average income” outliers make a big difference. For example, imagine a bar with 9 people in it who each earn $100,000. If Bill Gates walks in to the bar (who generally earns hundreds of millions each year from his stock sales), the average income in the bar would surge. Unfortunately, this figure tells you little about the typical income of the bar’s patrons. However, percentile calculations (such as the median/50th percentile) would still be useful even with someone such as Mr. Gates being present.
    • Therefore, if you are 30-34 years old with an income of $78,000, this would put you around the 50th percentile (median) of income among 30-34 year-old households in the United States. This figure is NOT influenced by super high-earning 30-34 year-old households in any significant way. However, if you wanted to find what income would get you to the 99th percentile among 30-34 year-old U.S. households, outliers would influence this figure a bit more. Just something to keep in mind as you look through the data.