Income By State
In 2010, the median household income by state ranged from $35,693 in Mississippi to $66,334 in Maryland. California, with the highest median home price in the nation and home prices that far outpaced incomes, only ranked ninth with a median household income of $61,021. While California's median income was not near enough to afford the average California home or even a starter home, West Virginia, which had one of the nation's lowest median household incomes, also had the nation's lowest median home price.
By Census Bureau Region, of the 15 states with the highest median household income, only Minnesota is located in the Mid-West, while five are in the Northeast (New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New York) three are in the South (Delaware, Maryland and Virginia), and the other six (Alaska, Hawaii, California, Washington, Colorado and Utah) are in the West.
The southern states had, on average, the lowest median household income, with nine of the country's fifteen poorest states located in the South. However, most of the poverty in the South is located in rural areas. Metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Nashville, Charlotte, Raleigh, Richmond, Birmingham, Dallas, Houston, and Miami are areas within the southern states that have above average income levels. Overall, median household income tended to be the highest in the nation's most urbanized northeastern, upper midwestern and west coast states, while rural areas, mostly in the southern and mountain states (like New Mexico, Montana and Idaho), had the lowest median household income.
Median Household Income by State
| Rank | State | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2004–2006 | Cost of Living Index | 2009 Data adjusted for COL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maryland | $69,272 | $70,545 | $68,080 | $62,372 | 124.81 | $55,502 |
| 2 | New Jersey | $68,342 | $70,378 | $67,035 | $64,169 | 128.47 | $53,197 |
| 3 | Connecticut | $67,034 | $68,595 | $65,967 | $59,972 | 130.22 | $51,477 |
| 4 | Alaska | $66,953 | $68,460 | $64,333 | $57,639 | 132.64 | $50,477 |
| 5 | Hawaii | $64,098 | $67,214 | $63,746 | $60,681 | 165.56 | $38,716 |
| 6 | Massachusetts | $64,081 | $65,401 | $62,365 | $56,236 | 117.8 | $54,398 |
| 7 | New Hampshire | $60,567 | $63,731 | $62,369 | $60,489 | 116.68 | $51,909 |
| 8 | Virginia | $59,330 | $61,233 | $59,562 | $55,108 | 97.66 | $60,752 |
| District of Columbia | $59,290 | $57,936 | $54,317 | $47,221 (2005) | 139.92 | $42,374 | |
| 9 | California | $58,931 | $61,021 | $59,948 | $53,770 | 132.56 | $44,456 |
| 10 | Delaware | $56,860 | $57,989 | $54,610 | $52,214 | 102.4 | $55,527 |
| 11 | Washington | $56,548 | $58,078 | $55,591 | $53,439 | 103.98 | $54,384 |
| 12 | Minnesota | $55,616 | $57,288 | $55,082 | $57,363 | 102.23 | $54,403 |
| 13 | Colorado | $55,430 | $56,993 | $55,212 | $54,039 | 102.23 | $54,221 |
| 14 | Utah | $55,117 | $56,633 | $55,109 | $55,179 | 95.15 | $57,926 |
| 15 | New York | $54,659 | $56,033 | $53,514 | $48,201 | 128.29 | $42,606 |
| 16 | Rhode Island | $54,119 | $55,701 | $53,568 | $52,003 | 123.25 | $43,910 |
| 17 | Illinois | $53,966 | $56,235 | $54,124 | $49,280 | 96.08 | $56,168 |
| 18 | Nevada | $53,341 | $56,361 | $55,062 | $50,819 | 101.39 | $52,610 |
| 19 | Wyoming | $52,664 | $53,207 | $51,731 | $47,227 | 98.66 | $53,379 |
| 20 | Vermont | $51,618 | $52,104 | $49,907 | $51,622 | 120.38 | $42,879 |
| United States | $50,221 | $52,029 | $50,740 | $46,242 (2005) | |||
| 21 | Wisconsin | $49,993 | $52,094 | $50,578 | $48,874 | 96.45 | $51,833 |
| 22 | Pennsylvania | $49,520 | $50,713 | $48,576 | $47,791 | 100.67 | $49,190 |
| 23 | Arizona | $48,745 | $50,958 | $49,889 | $46,729 | 103.73 | $46,992 |
| 24 | Oregon | $48,457 | $50,169 | $48,730 | $45,485 | 110.47 | $43,864 |
| 25 | Texas | $48,259 | $50,043 | $47,548 | $43,425 | 91.04 | $53,009 |
| 26 | Iowa | $48,044 | $48,980 | $47,292 | $47,489 | 93.98 | $51,122 |
| 27 | North Dakota | $47,827 | $45,685 | $43,753 | $43,753 | 95.91 | $49,867 |
| 28 | Kansas | $47,817 | $50,177 | $47,451 | $44,264 | 91.31 | $52,368 |
| 29 | Georgia | $47,590 | $50,861 | $49,136 | $46,841 | 92.21 | $51,610 |
| 30 | Nebraska | $47,357 | $49,693 | $47,085 | $48,126 | 91.09 | $51,989 |
| 31 | Maine | $45,734 | $46,581 | $45,888 | $45,040 | 116.42 | $39,284 |
| 32 | Indiana | $45,424 | $47,966 | $47,448 | $44,806 | 94.19 | $48,226 |
| 33 | Ohio | $45,395 | $47,988 | $46,597 | $45,837 | 93.85 | $48,370 |
| 34 | Michigan | $45,255 | $48,591 | $47,950 | $47,064 | 95.25 | $47,512 |
| 35 | Missouri | $45,229 | $46,867 | $45,114 | $44,651 | 91.66 | $49,344 |
| 36 | South Dakota | $45,043 | $46,032 | $43,424 | $44,624 | 98.53 | $45,715 |
| 37 | Idaho | $44,926 | $47,576 | $46,253 | $46,395 | 93.04 | $48,287 |
| 38 | Florida | $44,736 | $47,778 | $47,804 | $44,448 | 98.39 | $45,468 |
| 39 | North Carolina | $43,674 | $46,549 | $44,670 | $42,061 | 96.21 | $45,394 |
| 40 | New Mexico | $43,028 | $43,508 | $41,452 | $40,827 | 98.88 | $43,515 |
| 41 | Louisiana | $42,492 | $43,733 | $40,926 | $37,943 | 96.15 | $44,193 |
| 42 | South Carolina | $44,625 | $43,329 | $40,822 | 98.71 | $42,997 | |
| 43 | Montana | $42,322 | $43,654 | $43,531 | $38,629 | 100 | $42,322 |
| 44 | Tennessee | $41,725 | $43,614 | $42,367 | $40,676 | 89.49 | $46,625 |
| 45 | Oklahoma | $41,664 | $42,822 | $41,567 | $40,001 | 90.09 | $46,247 |
| 46 | Alabama | $40,489 | $42,666 | $40,554 | $38,473 | 92.74 | $43,659 |
| 47 | Kentucky | $40,072 | $41,538 | $40,267 | $38,466 | 89.21 | $44,919 |
| 48 | Arkansas | $37,823 | $38,815 | $38,134 | $37,420 | 90.61 | $41,743 |
| 49 | West Virginia | $37,435 | $37,989 | $37,060 | $37,227 | 94.4 | $39,656 |
| 50 | Mississippi | $36,646 | $37,790 | $36,338 | $35,261 | 92.26 | $39,720 |
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“You boast of spending a tenth part of your income in charity; maybe you should spend the nine tenths so, and done with it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The essence of the modern state is that the universal be bound up with the complete freedom of its particular members and with private well-being, that thus the interests of family and civil society must concentrate themselves on the state.... It is only when both these moments subsist in their strength that the state can be regarded as articulated and genuinely organized.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)