Revealed: the States with the Highest Earners

• Hemet, CA has seen the largest increase in households earning over $200,000 in the last 10 years, at +6,407%
• Lafayette, ID has seen the biggest decrease of households earning more than $200,000, at -77%
• Elizabeth has seen the highest increase in high earners over the last 10 years, in the state of New Jersey

For many Americans, the last 10 years have resulted in more job opportunities and as a result, plenty of promotions and pay rises. With that in mind, we analyzed the data to discover which cities have seen the biggest increase in households earning more than $200,000 – and which have seen the largest decreases. So, read on to find out more…

With a staggering 6,407% increase in households earning more than $200,000 since 2013, Hemet tops the list. Located just outside of LA, the area has grown by 10%, with more people flocking to the suburbs, equating to an additional 1,945 households that are earning above the $200,000 threshold.

The area of Miami Gardens has come in second place, with a 1,678% increase. In fact, Florida features heavily on this list, with Lehigh Acres in fifth place, Palm Bay in eighth, and Deltona in ninth, all seeing more than a 1,000% increase in households earning more than $200,000 over the last 10 years.

Lehigh Acres, FL and Menifee, CA have seen the largest increase in households moving to the area since 2013, at 28%, resulting in higher levels of affluence. However, Pasco, WA, isn’t far behind, with a 24% rise in the number of households, and 1,669 households earning over $200,000.

Hammond, Indiana and Schenectady, New York both made it into the top five, with a 1,302% and 1,287% increase in households earning more than $200,000 respectively; and with Jonesboro in Arkansas making it into sixth place, this shows that the wealth is fairly spread around the US, with no one state exclusively being home to high earners.

Whilst there have been huge increases in many cities, there have been decreases too. This is likely due to several reasons, such as households moving to other cities and states in search of job opportunities, and more people retiring and giving up their yearly income.

Lafayette, just an hour north of Indiana’s capital, Indianapolis, has seen the biggest decrease in households earning over $200,000, with a 77% dip over the last 10 years. That’s 100% higher than the next place to feature on our list, which is Victoria, TX. However, if you look at the actual number of households earning more than $200,000, it’s very similar, with 320 and 316 fewer households respectively.

Two cities in Florida feature on the list: Largo and Kissimmee. With Florida a hugely popular state for retirees to flock to, in search of some sunshine, we can guess this is likely the reason behind these stats – especially considering that Kissimmee has seen a 27% increase in the number of households over the last 10 years.

Bismarck, ND and Apple Valley, CA make up the top five, with a 32% and 23% decrease respectively in the number of households earning more than $200,000.

If we look at the state of New Jersey specifically, we can see that Elizabeth has seen the biggest increase in households earning over $200,000, with a huge 630% increase in the last 10 years – taking the total number of new households to 2,268.

East Orange and Passaic aren’t far behind, with a 479% and 438% increase, respectively. What’s interesting about Passaic, is that it’s only grown by 4% over the last 10 years, suggesting that households living there since 2013 have enjoyed pay rises and promotions, as opposed to new people moving to the area.

Newark, Jersey City, and Union City have all seen huge increases in households earning more than $200,000 and more people moving to the area. Given that these three places are all easily commutable to Manhattan, many of these households could be working in NYC and earning higher wages than they would if they were employed in New Jersey.

California tops the list of states predicted to have the most households earning $200,000 or more in 2023, with 8,514,330 households earning over $200,000 in 2021 some way ahead of Texas (5,564,076) and New York (3,789,620). All of the top 20 states saw growth in these numbers from 2013.

Scraping into the top 20 was Pennsylvania at 19 and Michigan at 20 with New Jersey finishing in 21st. 

Data was analyzed from 2013-2021 using the US census (https://data.census.gov/table?q=Income+(Households,+Families,+Individuals) ). However, please note that the data for the year 2020 was missing due to Covid data collection issues within the US census. We also excluded areas which had missing information on some of the years. 

The columns for each of the tables include:

• Area – this is the area of the US 
• % increase of households that earn over $200,000 since 2013
• % increase in total households in that area since 2013 - this is the % that the area has grown overall since 2013. For example, if there were 10 houses in that area in 2013 and now there is 15, the area has grown by 50%
• The actual number of households now earning over 200k – this is the actual increase (as a number) of how many more houses earn over $200,000 since 2013