Am I in the 1%?

Filing jointly? Use your combined income. Technically it's your adjusted gross income: line 11 on Form 1040.

Fig. 1. The road to the 1%, in dollars a year

Fig. 2. America as 100 taxpayers

Highest earners Lowest earners

Income groups: where each starts, and its share of all income
Group Income Money

Notes

  1. Income means adjusted gross income on one federal tax return: wages, business, and investment income, minus a few adjustments like retirement contributions. Single filers count alone; married couples filing jointly count together.
  2. Data: IRS Statistics of Income, tax year 2023, the latest published. Table 4.3 gives the percentile lines and income shares; Tables 1.1 and 1.7 give the brackets below the median. 153.1 million returns, not counting returns filed by dependents.
  3. Dollars: every dollar figure is adjusted for inflation with the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U).
  4. Method: your percentile is interpolated between the lines the IRS publishes (the median, top 40%, 30%, 25%, 20%, 10%, 5% through 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, and 0.001%), and between its income brackets below the median.
  5. Who's missing: people who earn too little to file a return aren't in IRS data, so the bottom of the scale undercounts them.