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Salaries Required To Be Considered Rich In 40 U.S. Cities

CR Staff - February 11, 2023

3. Washington, DC: more than $191,686

• How much money it takes to be in the top 1% in Washington, DC: $544,719

• Median income in DC: $95,843

• Metro-area population: 6.1 million

Washington DC is the seat of the federal government of the United States of America, and resides within a special federal district under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress, so it does not belong to any U.S. state. The many functions of the federal government and the private contracting industry that services its many departments make up a recession-proof local industry that carries on even during national and global economic downturns. Many defense and civilian contractors, law firms, non-profits, lobbyists, trade associations, and professional groups comprise this unique local economy and have their headquarters in Washington DC. Annually the gross domestic product of the greater Washington metropolitan area exceeds $430 billion, which makes it the sixth-largest metro by GDP in the United States.

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2. San Francisco, California: more than $193,354

• How much money it takes to be in the top 1% in California: $453,772

• Median income in San Francisco: $96,677

• Metro-area population: 4.7 million

Currently an Alpha world city, San Francisco is a historic American city which came to prominence in the United States during the California gold rush of the late 1840s and early 1850s. At that time it established itself as an enduring financial powerhouse of the West Coast, with many calling Montgomery Street in its financial district “the Wall Street of the West.” Technology has been the greatest driver of economic growth in San Francisco in recent years, with high tech jobs making up only 1 percent of San Francisco’s job market in 1990, quadrupling to 4 percent over the next two decades by 2010, and rapidly doubling to 8 percent of the city’s economy by 2013. The San Francisco Bay Area is the global epicenter of Internet start-ups, dot coms, and social media giants.

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1. San Jose, California: More than $220,080

• How much money it takes to be in the top 1% in California: $453,772

• Median income in San Jose: $110,040

• Metro-area population: 2 million

It takes a lot of money to be considered rich in San Jose by the rest of the country’s standards, and this extremely affluent American city has some of the highest costs of living in the state of California and the entire nation, driven primarily by the exorbitant real estate prices and rents in the area, which soar above the national average and cater to households with the largest average disposable income of any city in the United States of half a million residents or more. San Jose is home to the headquarters of: Adobe, Altera, Brocade Communications Systems, Cadence Design Systems, Cisco Systems, eBay, Lee’s Sandwiches, Lumileds, PayPal, Rosendin Electric, Sanmina-SCI, and Xilinx.

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