Data study
The Richest and Poorest Big Cities in America (2025)
In one American city the typical household earns $186,000 a year. In another, it’s $40,000. We mapped the income extremes of America’s large cities — and the gap is wider than you’d think.
Key takeaways
- The richest big city in America is Sunnyvale, CA — median household income $186,170.
- The poorest is Detroit, MI at $39,938 — a 4.7× gap between the two.
- The top of the list is almost entirely Silicon Valley; the bottom is older industrial cities.
- The U.S. median is about $78,000 — the richest cities double it, the poorest halve it.
Median household income is the single best one-number summary of a city’s economy — and across America’s big cities it ranges by nearly fivefold. Using the Census Bureau’s 2024 data, we ranked cities of 100,000+ from richest to poorest. The national median is about $78,000; the extremes sit far on either side.
The richest big cities
| City | Median household income |
|---|---|
| Sunnyvale, CA | $186,170 |
| Fremont, CA | $181,506 |
| Santa Clara, CA | $178,958 |
| Bellevue, WA | $165,576 |
| Highlands Ranch, CO | $159,307 |
| Naperville, IL | $155,105 |
| Frisco, TX | $150,212 |
The pattern at the top is overwhelming: Silicon Valley. Sunnyvale, Fremont, Santa Clara and San Mateo — all within commuting distance of the Bay Area’s tech giants — cluster above $175,000, roughly two and a half times the national median. Bellevue (next to Seattle’s Microsoft-and-Amazon economy), the Denver suburb of Highlands Ranch, Chicago’s Naperville and the Dallas suburb of Frisco round out a list defined by high-wage employers and the expensive housing that surrounds them.
The poorest big cities
| City | Median household income |
|---|---|
| Detroit, MI | $39,938 |
| Cleveland, OH | $40,801 |
| Jackson, MS | $42,071 |
| Dayton, OH | $45,247 |
| Birmingham, AL | $46,051 |
| Hartford, CT | $46,411 |
The bottom of the list traces the map of American deindustrialization: Detroit, Cleveland, Dayton and Birmingham were all built on manufacturing that has long since shrunk, leaving concentrated poverty and decades of population loss. At about $40,000, a typical Detroit household earns barely a fifth of what a Sunnyvale household does — a reminder that “the American city” is really many different economies wearing the same name.
See where your city lands
Median household income, home values and rent are all on every CensusFlow city page, next to population, age and the local workforce. Search your city to see where it falls between Sunnyvale and Detroit. For more on how American cities differ, read about the most diverse cities and the youngest and oldest cities in the country.