Economics
The Income Gap Is Getting Worse in American Cities
- U.S. income gap between top 5% and middle 20% grew by $118,000
- Boise City, Idaho, and Knoxville, Tennessee, have robust gaps
San Francisco, California.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
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The chasm between America’s top income earners and the middle class is widening in nearly every major metropolitan area, with San Francisco leading the way.
The tech hub’s "super-rich versus middle-class" gap swelled by $118,000 to $529,500 over the past five years, as the top 5 percent of households earned $632,310 in 2017, compared with $102,785 for the middle class, according to the Bloomberg analysis of U.S. Census data.