Lower-middle-class professions typically include semi-professional, white-collar, or skilled blue-collar jobs that require some college or technical training but often lack high autonomy, high prestige, or significant accumulated wealth. These positions often provide a stable, comfortable income, frequently estimated between $ 30 , 000 $ 3 0 , 0 0 0 and $ 100 , 000 $ 1 0 0 , 0 0 0 annually depending on location.
Individuals in the lower-middle class tend to hold low status professional or white collar jobs, such as school teacher, nurse, or paralegal. These types of occupations usually require some education but generally do not require a graduate degree.
Being lower-middle class involves having stable, modest incomes (often from jobs like teaching, nursing, or admin roles) with some college education, living paycheck-to-paycheck or with limited savings, needing careful budgeting, and often residing in outer suburbs, balancing aspirations with financial realities. Key factors include a focus on essential spending, debt management, and a reliance on skills and stability rather than high wealth accumulation, placing you above poverty but sensitive to financial shocks.
The lower class was composed primarily of workers in extractive, manufacturing, and service industries, who were dependent on wages and who primarily used physical skills. The lower class was divided into occupational sub-groupings of highly skilled handicrafters, semi-skilled workers, and unskilled laborers.
Over one quarter, 28.5%, of all income was earned by the top 8%, those households earning more than $150,000 a year. The top 3.65%, with incomes over $200,000, earned 17.5%. Households with annual incomes from $50,000 to $75,000, 18.2% of households, earned 16.5% of all income.
Yes, $70,000 a year generally falls within the U.S. middle-class income range, but it depends heavily on location and household size, often sitting at the lower end of middle income, especially in high-cost areas where it might even feel lower, while in lower-cost areas it could offer a more comfortable middle-class lifestyle. The Pew Research Center defines middle class as two-thirds to double the national median household income, which puts $70k right around the median itself, making it squarely middle-class nationally but varying greatly by zip code.
The working poor, manual laborers, and service industry workers all might be considered part of the lower class. Some people might be offended at being labelled lower class; working class is a more acceptable way to refer to this low-paid group.
We use your size-adjusted household income and the cost of living in your area to determine your income tier. Middle-income households – those with an income that is two-thirds to double the U.S. median household income – had incomes ranging from about $56,600 to $169,800 in 2022.
The lower class is typified by poverty, homelessness, and unemployment. People of this class, few of whom have finished high school, suffer from lack of medical care, adequate housing and food, decent clothing, safety, and vocational training.
Social class is based on a mix of income, education and status. Most teachers are middle-income, have high levels of education and have median societal status. The “working class” are more like retail, service, factory, warehousing, gig workers and most blue-collar labor.
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Five common income classes, often based on income distribution like quintiles (fifths) of the population, are Lower Class, Lower-Middle Class, Middle Class, Upper-Middle Class, and Upper Class, with specific income thresholds varying by source but generally defining the middle class as earning around two-thirds to double the national median income, adjusted for household size and cost of living.
What Percentage of Americans Make Over $70,000 Annually? U.S. Census data reports that in 2022 (the most recent data available), 49.8% of Americans made $75,000 and more, and 16.2% earned between $50,000 and $75,000. Based on these statistics, at least half of Americans make $70,000.
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People making six-figure salaries used to be considered rich—now households earning nearly $200K a year aren't considered upper-class in some states. Emma Burleigh is a reporter at Fortune, covering success, careers, entrepreneurship, and personal finance.
What Is the Average US Salary (2025) The national average salary is $63,795. That is the sum of all incomes divided by the number of workers.
A $150k salary is quite good and relatively rare, placing a household in the top 10-20% nationally, far above the median income, but its "wealth" status varies significantly by location, feeling middle-class in high-cost areas like San Francisco but affluent in lower-cost regions. While it's well above the national median ($70k-$100k range), it's not yet top 1% ($450k+) but puts you in the upper-middle class for most places.