Methodology

Population & unit

Comparisons use the Census Bureau’s housing-unit / household record from the ACS PUMS 2018–2022 (2022 vintage). Household income is total income for the household in the past 12 months before personal income taxes (variable HINCP), adjusted with ADJINC. Age is the age of the householder (HHLDRAGEP). If you enter your personal salary but live with a partner or family, your household total may differ — the tool is built for household income, not individual W-2 wages alone.

Young adults (18–24) caveat

PUMS only includes people as rows in their own household when they are the householder (or in the household record). Many adults under 25 live with parents or roommates and are not the householder; they do not appear as separate household rows. The 18–24 curve therefore reflects younger householders, not all people aged 18–24.

Privacy

• Income and age stay on your device for the percentile math; they are not uploaded for that step.
• Optional ZIP adjustment uses only the five-digit ZIP you enter to look up published Census ACS median household income (B19013). Your entered income is not sent with that lookup.

Data & dollars

Microdata come from the 2022 ACS 5-year PUMS housing file. HINCP is adjusted with ADJINC per Census documentation. The Census Data API returns ADJINC as a decimal multiplier; the CSV extract uses an integer with six implied decimals — our build script accepts both. The site toggle applies BLS CPI-U from the 2022 annual average to March 2026 for display in “2026 dollars.”

Exclusions

We drop housing units with HINCP = -60000 (GQ/vacant per PUMS code list) and negative incomes (loss codes). Those are valid design choices for a simple household-income percentile tool; they are noted so you can compare with other publications that include losses differently.

Age bands & your exact age

We use the same age bracket labels and midpoints as the net worth calculator for a consistent UX. For a specific age, we linearly blend the two neighboring brackets using their midpoints so the percentile, table benchmarks, and chart all match the same blended income curve.

Optional ZIP median-income scaling

This is not “ACS income for your ZIP” from PUMS. We still use the national PUMS curve by age. If you opt in, we compare your ZIP’s published ZCTA median household income (ACS B19013) to the national median, form a capped ratio, and multiply every dollar on the national comparison curve by that ratio. Your entered income does not change — only the yardstick does. For income (unlike net worth), that scaling is a more direct local-vs-national pay comparison, though it still replaces a full local microsample.

What we do not claim

• No formal confidence intervals from replicate weights in the UI.
• ZIP mode is not a place-specific PUMS extract; it scales the national curve by published medians.
• One decimal in the interface is formatting, not extra precision from the underlying sample.