Real median household income measures the 50th percentile of all household incomes (i.e, if all of the household incomes are sorted, the median is the middle value). Household income uses "money income", a concept from the Census Bureau that includes pre-tax income received on a regular basis. It comes in the form of wages, salaries, commissions, tips, self-employment, dividends, net rental income, Social Security, retirement, disability benefits, Veteran's payments, unemployment or worker compensation, child support, and alimony. Unlike personal income, it excludes the value of noncash benefits, like employer contributions to health insurance and Medicare and Medicaid payments. The income values are adjusted for inflation. This chart estimates the median household income by race. Note that there is not enough data to show for the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander category. Perhaps the most accepted measure of income, median household income indicates whether a region's population is becoming more prosperous. It is important to make sure prosperity is being realized by all racial and ethnic groups as our region works address factors leading to income inequality.
Real median household income by race increased for all racial and ethinic groups in 2022, except American Indian and Alaska Native. Note that this data are from the 5-year American Community Survey (ACS), so changes from year-to-year are more tempered than they are in the real median income from the 1-year ACS; including the effects of inflation. The "some other race" category had the largest percentage gain at 10%, while American Indican and Alaska Native fell by 1%. Since 2019, the racial and ethnic groups with the largest gains are: two or more races (+31%), some other race (+19%), and Hispanic or Latino (+13%).
U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year Estimate[Table code: S1903]
This chart uses 5-year American Community Survey data which is not directly comparable to the 1-year American Community Survey data. The observation year represents the last year of the 5-year survey, for example, year 2022 represents the survey period of 2018-2022. Some race categories have a small sample size, resulting in large observational variances. For some years, data are suppressed and there is a break in the time series.