Income of Americans

Don’t fall for those memes and posters on income disparity, all weepy about how awful things are.  There’s household income, individual income by labor, then there’s income from all sources, then by education, or by gender or by race. The rich do have more, but they also pay most of the taxes.  But no matter how you slice and dice it, Asian Americans (40 different ethnicities) do better than any other group, all the way from Indians ($101,591) to Chinese ($69,586) to Pakistani ($62,848) to Bangladeshi ($44,512). (Nielsen report on Asian Americans) And they are more likely to be married, and to have more members in the household earning money, and to have more education.  The difference between Nigerian Americans ($62,086) and black Americans ($36,544) is much greater than between white and black Americans. (Wikipedia)

The CBO household income figures are higher than any I’ve seen elsewhere because it includes all income including government transfers. In 2013, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates, AVERAGE household market income of $86,000—a comprehensive income measure that consists of labor income, business income, capital income including capital gains), and retirement income. Government transfers, which include benefits from programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance, averaged approximately $14,000 per household. The sum of those two amounts, which equals BEFORE TAX INCOME, was about $100,000, on average. https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/51361-HouseholdIncomeFedTaxes_OneCol.pdf