Here’s How Much Money It Takes In CA To Be Middle Class

CALIFORNIA — About half of Americans are part of the middle class, but what it takes to be considered middle class isn’t the same in California as it is in other places, according to a recent study.

“Middle class” is an inherently nebulous definition. The Pew Research Center defines people in the middle class as those whose incomes are between two-thirds and double the national median household income. Overall, nearly 20 percent of Americans have upper-class incomes, 28 percent have lower-class incomes and the vast majority fall into the middle class.

Because cost of living and average incomes vary so widely from state to state, the income needed to be “middle class” also greatly varies. Using Pew’s definition of the middle class, online banking company GOBanking.com analyzed the most recent American Community Survey data to determine middle-class income for every state in 2025.

In California, where the median household income is $91,905, middle-class incomes range from $61,269 to $183,810.

Unsurprisingly, this is one of the highest median incomes in the country. By contrast, Arkansas’s median household income is $56,335, and a middle class income ranges from $37,556 to $112,670.

Still, it is not the highest. Maryland ranks highest, with a median household income of $98,461 and a range of $65,640 to $196,922. States like New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Hawaii all beat out California.

The Pew Research Center’s middle-class income calculator shows differences by metro area and by race or ethnicity, age, gender.

It shows that 49.5 percent of residents of the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro have middle-class incomes of around $73,923 to 221,770 for a household of four, compared to 52% of U.S. residents.

In the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont area, just 44.3% of residents fall into the middle income category, where salaries range from $91,119 to $273,384.

In the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro, the heart of Silicon Valley, just 41.7% qualify as middle income.