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Distribution of Personal Income

Distribution of Personal Income

These statistics take one of BEA's primary economic indicators – U.S. personal income – and measure how it is distributed across households. This provides a way to assess how households share in the nation's economic growth. The statistics build on more than a decade of BEA research by bringing in new sources of data, including demographic surveys, aggregated tax records, and administrative records. The first national prototype statistics were published in 2020 and the first experimental state statistics were published in 2023.

Distribution of U.S. Personal Income

BEA produces a distribution of personal income based on the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC), a nationally representative annual survey available nine months after the calendar year, augmented with tax and administrative data. This exercise bridges the gap between household-level data and national economic statistics. The methodology for distributing personal income allocates income totals from NIPA Table 2.1 across households. This bridges the gap between household-level data and national economic statistics. Results are adjusted for household size and compiled by income quantile and year.

National Nowcast

To improve timeliness, BEA has developed an experimental nowcast for 2024 that balances user needs for relevance and accuracy. Machine learning techniques analyze relationships between published annual distributions and current NIPA totals to generate timely estimates at the quintile level. The nowcasting methodology is detailed in BEA Working Paper 2024-6, with an abridged version published in AEA Papers and Proceedings. 

The following are estimates for shares (2023 and 2024) and growth of personal income (2023-2024) by quintile, as published for 2023 and nowcast for 2024:

  2023 Share of PI
(Published)		 2024 Share of PI
(Nowcast)		 2024 Growth in PI
(Nowcast)
Q1: 0-20% 5.3 5.2 2.7%
Q2: 20-40% 9.6 9.5 4.1%
Q3: 40-60% 13.5 13.4 4.8%
Q4: 60-80% 19.0 19.3 7.2%
Q5: 80-100% 52.6 52.6 5.5%

Supplementary National Distributional Analysis

  • Growth Incidence Curve

    Change in Equivalized Real Personal Income, 2000-2023 The growth incidence curve (GIC) provides information about the evolution of income over time. A downward sloping GIC indicates that lower income households experienced faster growth than high income households. More information in the Growth Incidence Curves section to follow.

  • Internationally Comparable Statistics

    A series of internationally comparable research statistics has been provided that follow the guidance of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Expert Group on Disparities in a National Accounts framework (EG DNA). These tables (and accompanying methodology document) are provided in the "Internationally Comparable Statistics" section on this page.

  • Distribution of Personal Saving (Based on Joint Distribution of Disposable Personal Income and Personal Consumption Expenditures)

    To provide a fuller picture of the well-being of households, BEA and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) have collaborated to produce a distribution of personal saving, by developing a joint distribution of disposable personal income (DPI) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE). Results and methodology are available in the Distribution of Personal Saving Data section that follows.

Distribution of State Personal Income

Prototype statistics showing how personal income is distributed across households in each state and the District of Columbia were updated in July 2025; this release also contains new statistics showing how disposable personal income (personal income after taxes) is distributed across households in each state. The release added new statistics for 2023 and updated the entire series from 2012 to 2022 based on new source data and updates in methods. These statistics build on the methodology BEA uses to estimate the national distribution of personal income. They are consistent with and complement existing BEA data on state personal income totals. Data users are invited to provide feedback on these prototype state statistics as we continue to research and make improvements.

Interactive Map Note. The Gini coefficient is a measure of the distribution of income, where 1 represents the entire income distributed to a single household and 0 represents a completely even distribution of income among households.

  • The GIC supplements other measures such as the Gini coefficient or the shares of personal income going to different deciles.
  • Growth Incidence Curves PDF
  • Includes distribution of state personal income by quintile and top/bottom 10%, 2012–2023.
  • Download a summary file of state distributional metrics for 2012-2023 XLSX
  • Download detailed files for all states ZIP (Compressed XLSX)
  • State Rankings XLSX State rankings for mean and median personal income, before and after adjusting for inflation and regional price differences.
  • Summary of Methodological Updates PDF July 10, 2025
  • Technical Document PDF October 24, 2023
    This document details BEA's methodology for the prototype estimates.
  • Developing Statistics on the Distribution of State Personal Income: Methodology and Preliminary Results PDF By Dirk van Duym and Christian Awuku-Budu | U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, May 2022
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What is Distribution of Personal Income?

Measures how households are sharing in the U.S. economy's growth. Shows how total personal income in the United States is distributed across households.

A Primer on the Gini Coefficient

The Gini coefficient, or Gini index, is widely used as a measure of the concentration of income within a population, such as the residents of a country or state.

Learn More

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