Across the United States, the line between middle and upper-middle income is shifting, and it looks very different in Boston than it does in Birmingham. The gap is not just about how much money a household earns, but how far that money stretches in specific states and cities. I want to unpack how those tiers are defined, where the thresholds are rising fastest, and why a salary that feels solidly comfortable in one place barely clears the middle in another.
To do that, I will lean on recent national and state-level research on income bands, then layer in examples from high-cost coastal hubs and more affordable industrial metros. The goal is simple: to show how the same paycheck can place a family in the middle, upper-middle, or even struggling tier depending on the local economy that surrounds it.
How researchers actually define “middle” and “upper-middle” income
Any serious comparison of income tiers has to start with the definitions, and the most widely used benchmark comes from a framework that pegs the middle tier to a band around the median. Using Pew Research as a reference point, one influential 2025 analysis defines middle income as households earning between two-thirds and double the local median, a range that automatically adjusts for regional differences in pay and prices and is applied across states and large metros in the middle-class 2025 study. That same work notes that middle income is not a single national number, but a moving target that shifts with local wages and costs.
Upper-middle income is typically defined as the tier above that band, and recent national coverage stresses that the amount that is considered middle class or upper-middle class depends heavily on where a household lives. One detailed breakdown explains that the amount that is considered middle class or upper-middle class can vary widely by region and can be as high as $250,000 in some high-cost areas, underscoring how location reshapes the ladder of opportunity, a point highlighted in a Nov analysis of income tiers. I see that as the core tension in today’s income debate: the labels are national, but the thresholds are intensely local.
National benchmarks: where the middle ends and upper-middle begins
Once those definitions are in place, the next question is where the middle tier ends nationally and where the upper-middle tier begins. One widely cited 2025 review of income bands reports that, Nationwide, upper-middle class households earn a median income between $117,000 and $150,000, placing them clearly above the broad middle but still short of the top 5 percent, a range that reflects an analysis of household earnings across regions and is summarized in a Nationwide income snapshot. That band helps explain why a six-figure salary can feel routine in some metros and aspirational in others…