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Income is money received over a period; net worth is the value of assets minus debts at a point in time. The top 1% by income and the top 1% by net worth are therefore separate rankings, and their dollar cutoffs are not interchangeable. A meaningful cutoff must specify the geography, year, population unit, and measure being ranked.
Income is a flow; net worth is a stock
Income measures money received during a period, usually a calendar year. Net worth, also called wealth, measures a balance at a particular time: assets minus liabilities. The U.S. Census Bureau notes that wealth can be negative when debts exceed assets (U.S. Census Bureau, Wealth of Households: 2023, July 2025).
Because they measure different things, the rankings answer different questions. Income ranking asks how much a person or family received during a specified period relative to others. Wealth ranking asks how much their assets exceeded their debts at a specified date. A high income can help someone accumulate wealth, but spending, saving, investment returns, inheritance, debt, and the length of time wealth has been accumulated all affect the balance-sheet result.
What does “top 1%” mean?
“Top 1%” means the highest-ranking 1% of a defined population under a defined measure. The 99th-percentile cutoff for income is not the 99th-percentile cutoff for net worth. Nor is there one universal threshold: a figure may refer to a country, state, or other geography; a household, family, individual, or tax return; and a particular year and dollar basis.
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- Population unit: A Federal Reserve family-finance survey and an IRS table of individual tax returns do not rank the same units.
- Income definition: Usual or total family income differs from adjusted gross income (AGI) reported on a tax return.
- Wealth definition: Results depend on which assets and debts are counted.
- Reference date: Income applies to a period; net worth is valued at a point in time.
- Dollar basis: A nominal figure and an inflation-adjusted figure are not directly comparable unless the base year is stated.
For example, the IRS Statistics of Income percentile tables classify individual tax returns by AGI (IRS Statistics of Income, individual income-tax return tables). Those figures should not be presented as directly comparable to family-income or household-wealth survey thresholds.
Why commonly cited figures may not answer the top-1% question
Federal Reserve family-finance figures
The Federal Reserve’s 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) report gives selected percentiles for family finances. In 2022 dollars, the 90th-percentile value for usual income was $245,400, while the 90th-percentile value for net worth was $1,938,000. Both are 90th-percentile figures—not top-1% or 99th-percentile cutoffs. The displayed selected-percentile table does not provide a 99th-percentile income-and-net-worth pair (Federal Reserve Board, Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2019 to 2022, 2023).
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The SCF is a triennial survey of family income, net worth, balance-sheet components, credit use, and other financial outcomes. Its income measure refers to the year before the survey, while net worth is measured in the survey. The report says real median family income rose 3% from 2018 to 2021, with endpoints of $67,900 and $70,300 in 2022 dollars. It also reports that median net worth rose 37% from 2019 to 2022, reaching $192,900 in 2022 dollars. These are changes in medians, not evidence of a top-1% threshold.
Census household-wealth figures
The Census Bureau’s July 2025 brief estimates household wealth at the end of 2023 using 2024 Survey of Income and Program Participation public-use data. In 2023 dollars, it reports median household wealth of $191,100 and a 90th-percentile value of $1,806,000. The latter is again a 90th-percentile figure, not a top-1% cutoff (U.S. Census Bureau, Wealth of Households: 2023).
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The Census measure includes households with negative wealth, defines a household by the occupants of a housing unit, and excludes equity in pension plans and the value of home furnishings. Those scope choices matter when comparing it with a wealth measure built from different assets, liabilities, or population units.
How to compare top-percentile income and wealth figures
- Match the geography. Check whether each cutoff is national or applies to a state or other area.
- Match the unit. Compare household with household, family with family, individual with individual, or tax return with tax return. If the sources use different units, label the difference rather than treating the values as equivalent.
- Match the measure. Identify exactly what counts as income and which assets and debts count toward wealth. AGI is not automatically equivalent to survey-based family income.
- Match the year and timing. State the income year and the date or survey year for net worth. A survey may collect income for the preceding year and wealth at the time of the survey.
- Match the dollar basis and percentile. Say whether values are nominal or inflation-adjusted, give the base year when applicable, and verify that both figures refer to the same percentile. Do not extrapolate a top-1% cutoff from a 90th-percentile value.
The Federal Reserve Distributional Financial Accounts provide quarterly estimates of wealth shares by percentile group. They reconcile Financial Accounts balance sheets with SCF distributional data, interpolate between SCF surveys, and forecast beyond the latest survey. They are useful for tracking trends, but they are constructed estimates—not a new household-level survey that directly reports a fresh cutoff for each quarter (Federal Reserve Board, Distributional Financial Accounts).
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Can someone be top 1% in income but not in wealth?
Yes. Income and wealth are distinct rankings, so a person or family can rank highly on one and not the other. Someone with high current income may not yet have accumulated much wealth, while someone with substantial assets may have modest current income. The answer depends on the population, definitions, and dates used for both rankings.
Research comparing administrative and survey data documents how thresholds change when analysts change income definitions or move between household and tax-unit populations. Its figures are historical, so the study is useful for understanding measurement differences, not for stating today’s cutoff (IRS research paper comparing top-income and wealth measures).
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