What is the average income of San Francisco citizens and how do they rank in comparison to the rest of the country?
San Francisco leads the pack when it comes to earnings per household among major cities in the United States according to US Census Bureau data.
The median household income across the United States in $74,755 according to the most recent data available from the Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey. However, half of households earn more than that and the other half less. The state with the highest median household income is New Jersey at $96,346, while the state with the lowest at $52,719, is Mississippi.
But just as incomes vary from state to state across the nation, so to do the incomes from city to city. According to the ACS data, in 2022, San Francisco had the highest median household income of the 25 most populous cities.
What is the average income of San Francisco citizens and how do they rank in comparison to the rest of the country?
It may come as no surprise that the top two cities with the highest median household incomes are in the Bay Area, home to Silicon Valley tech start-ups and their high paying jobs. The median household income in San Francisco is $136,692 while the city with the second highest median income in the nation at $133,835 is San Jose.
| Most populated cities with highest median household income (2022) | |
|---|---|
| San Francisco, CA | $136,692 |
| San Jose, CA | $133,835 |
| Seattle, WA | $115,409 |
| District of Columbia | $101,027 |
| San Diego, CA | $100,010 |
| Austin, TX | $89,415 |
| Denver, CO | $88,213 |
| Boston, MA | $86,331 |
| Los Angeles, CA | $76,135 |
| Phoenix, AZ | $75,969 |
However, both of those cities have a much higher cost of living than the rest of the nation, even within the Golden State. Residents in the City by the Bay have to budget 24% more for the basics than the state average and 71% more than the national average according to Rent Café.
Despite the Bay Area as a whole having the highest median income, when accounting for inflation since 2019, it has seen its median income fall more than it did nationally. In 2022, median household income was 3.3% lower in the San Francisco metro area than in 2019 compared to 1.6% nationally according to a dive into the ACS data by Axios.
However, the Bay Area was one of the metropolitan areas that saw the fastest increase year-over-year from 2021 to 2022 with median income rising 2.2%. Only the Miami and Orlando metro areas saw faster median income growth at 2.6% and 2.4%, respectively, over the same period.