From NPR’s Planet Money column, comes a useful guide to seeing where you stand in the socioeconomic spectrum in your city. It is no secret that cost of living varies wildly from region to region, and even cities within the same state can have huge disparities in what constitutes a livable or comfortable income. (Click the hyperlink to the original article if you need to a larger version.)
The article notes some details about the data and methodology:
We used the family income data from the 2013 American Community Survey. This counts only families, which the government defines as households with two or more people related by birth, marriage or adoption.
The graph focuses on families living in the country’s 30 most populous cities. For the most part, it doesn’t include those living in suburbs and rural areas. That’s why the national median is higher than the median incomes in almost all of the cities on the graph.
One final note: In the area around San Jose (which includes the heart of Silicon Valley), 13 percent of families have annual incomes of $250,000 or more.
So where does your city stand in this chart?