Wealth Gap Visualizer

The Wealth Gap Visualizer shows where your income and net worth fall on national and global percentile distributions, plus contextual benchmarks: how you compare to median household, years to top 1% at current growth, and the spread between income and wealth percentiles (often dramatically different). Uses Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) data — the gold-standard triennial survey of US household balance sheets, last updated in October 2023 with 2022 data. Key US benchmarks (2022 data, expressed in 2022 dollars): Median household income $74,580. Top 10% income threshold ~$216,000. Top 1% income ~$650,000. Median household net worth $192,700 — but mean is $1.06M, showing extreme skew. Top 10% net worth threshold ~$1.94M. Top 1% net worth ~$11.1M. Top 0.1% net worth $46M+. Bottom 50% combined own roughly 2.5% of total US wealth; top 1% own 30%+. Income and wealth percentiles differ dramatically for most households. A 35-year-old physician earning $400k may sit at the 96th income percentile but only the 60th wealth percentile (high salary, recent student loan payoff, mortgage). A 70-year-old retired teacher with paid-off house and pension may be at the 40th income percentile but 80th wealth percentile. Wealth requires both high savings rate and time for compounding — income alone doesn't determine wealth. Global perspective adds humility: World Inequality Database reports global median income (PPP-adjusted) is around $7,000 USD. A US household at the 50th percentile ($74k) sits at the global 95th percentile. Median US net worth ($192k) is global top 1–2%. These framings can help reframe American sense of financial scarcity — many feeling 'middle class' globally are upper-class. Calculator presents both national and global views to contextualize relative position.

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1. 1Step 1 — Enter annual household income (use gross — pre-tax)
2. 2Step 2 — Enter net worth (total assets − total liabilities)
3. 3Step 3 — Select country or 'Global' for international perspective
4. 4Step 4 — Calculator looks up percentile in Federal Reserve SCF distribution
5. 5Step 5 — Outputs income percentile, wealth percentile, vs median household
6. 6Step 6 — Computes years to top 1% threshold at typical wealth growth rate
7. 7Step 7 — Compares income vs wealth percentile (often very different — informative)

• !Conflating income with wealth (high-earner is not synonymous with rich)
• !Comparing to social media rather than actual statistical data (Instagram shows top 5%, not median)
• !Forgetting home equity in net worth calculation (often the largest household asset)
• !Using nominal rather than real values when comparing across years
• !Assuming national percentile == global percentile (vastly different — US 50th is global 95th)