Six figure income

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The percentage of households and individuals over the age of 25 with incomes exceeding $100,000 in the US.^[1]^[2]

Six figure income is a term used most commonly in the United States and Canada to describe individuals or households whose income exceeds one hundred thousand dollars a year. Six-figure incomes are often seen as a great status symbol and one of the primary symbols of economic success.^[3] In the United States 15.8% of all households had annual incomes of $100,000 or more,^[2] the vast majority of which had two income earners.^[4] Among individuals above the age of twenty-five, 5.63% had incomes exceeding the six figure mark.^[1]

The discrepency between the percentage of individuals and households with six figure icomes is largely the result of 42% of US households having two income earners. In 2005, 77.15% of households in the top quintiles with incomes exceeding $88,000 had two or more income earners.^[4] United States Department of Commerce data indicates that only a small minority of households with six figure incomes are home to an individual with an income of over $100,000, while the majority have two or more persons pulling in less than $100,000. Thus roughly 1 out every 6 households had six figure income while only 1 out of every 20 individuals age 25 or older did so.^[1]^[4]