Average Income By Age in 2026 (Where Do You Stand?)

In this video, we're walking through the average income by age, and I'm also going to show you exactly where the bottom 25%, middle 50%, 75th, 90th, and top 1% fall at every single decade of life. This is all according to the most recent data for the end of 2025 and beginning of 2026, and I also will be sharing three goals for every age range that can actually move the needle on your income and your net worth. So whether you're in your 20s, 40s, 60s, or anything in between, I have something for you in this video, and as always, timestamps will be below. So if you just like to skip below to your age and see how you stack up, you can do that. All right, starting with the 20s here, you can see that the incomes at age 20 versus 29, there's actually a huge difference. That's because at the age of 20, you are still in the education phase of your life, or perhaps you're just starting your career versus at the age of 29, that's a probably better representation of this age bracket of someone who's basically a young professional. Now, the average income, as you can see, at the age of 29 is $73,903. However, I think that the average income can be a little bit misleading at times. That's because averages are calculated by adding up everyone's income and dividing it by the number of people, but a few very high or very low incomes can pull the average away from what most people actually earn. So in that case, I think that a better representation is probably the median income for most of America. I would say though, if you are living on the coasts in a high cost of living area, such as San Francisco or New York, you might want to use the 75th percentile of income as a better benchmark. That's because I feel like those incomes in those specific regions are usually a lot higher than just the median. So it's probably better to compare yourself to your cohort and your cohort is probably in the 75th percentile income. Either way though, you can see that most people in their 20s will be earning less than $100,000 per year. And it's only when you hit the top 10% of incomes in the nation that you are well in the six figure mark. Also $396,000 for the top 1% is pretty crazy in your 20s. I think the incomes here are probably going to be mostly comprised of people doing tech. So software engineers in tech at like one of these big AI firms, maybe you work at a hedge fund, a private equity shop, or maybe you're an investment banker, or just maybe you're just an entrepreneur that just makes a lot of money. There are three top goals that you should be achieving in your 20s. And the first is to build basic money habits that form a strong foundation. I'm not expecting you to save tens of thousands of dollars in your 20s, but I think that you should have some sort of structure for your finances. So that means automating a small amount of your regular paycheck into a savings or investment account, starting your first retirement accounts like your 401k or your IRA, and also just having a basic level of tracking for your spending so that you know where most of your money is going. Goal number two in your 20s is to keep your fixed expenses as light as possible. So if you can stay home and live with your parents for an extended period of time in I think that's even better because you're going to build up a really good base of money before you move out. If you don't have that luxury, then perhaps just make sure that you aren't living too lavishly because these days the statistics are pretty crazy. The average car payment is $766 in the United States. So make sure that you are well below that. And the average person spends about 32.8% of their income on rent. So if you can stay below that number, I think that's even better too. My last stat for you guys is that the average person also spends about $1,080 per year on subscriptions. So if you can make sure that you're not going to overboard in any of these three categories, transportation, housing, fixed expenses, like subscriptions, then you're going to be a lot better off in your thirties. And goal number three in your twenties is to prioritize building your skills so that you can increase your income later. That means you might want to job hop early when it can make a big difference and it makes sense for you, or you want to build skills and get educational credentials that can increase your pay. You can also just take on more responsibility at work. I know that sounds really basic, but a lot of people are afraid of that because they don't want more work for themselves. However, I think that taking on more responsibility will increase your skills and then create more value for you in your long-term career. In your twenties, your income curve is going to matter way more than your current bank balance. And I would encourage you to even maybe take some risks in order to get more experience and build your skills up. All right, let's go to the next decade of the thirties. Now I'm going to use the age of 35 here for our data reference, since it's right in the middle of the decade. And you can see that the average income is now $82,950 and the median sits at 60K exactly. The top 10% is now at 167K per year and the top 1%, well, they are nearing the highest federal tax bracket. So fun fact is that the highest federal tax bracket is now for incomes greater than $640,600 for the year of 2026. Now, ironically, as your income is increasing in your thirties, this is the decade where people lose the most ground financially. That's because their spending catches up too quickly. You usually start a family in your thirties, you're having big life events like a wedding, or you're buying a house, and you just might find yourself a little bit stretched thin in many different directions. So I think there are three goals in your thirties as well. So goal number one in your thirties is to really make sure you avoid this lifestyle creep. It's tempting to upgrade your lifestyle as your income grows, but if you're overspending on cars, homes, or luxury items, this can quickly slow down your progress towards financial freedom. A good rule of thumb when it comes to increasing your lifestyle is to think about the costs you're debating over a longer term time horizon. If you want to drive a nicer car, think about how much more that will cost you not just this year, but perhaps over the next five or 10 years total. I find that when I do this exercise, it really makes me think twice about that expensive upgrade. Another great life-changing rule is to save half of every single raise that you get. So for example, if you get a raise from 100K per year to say $110,000 per year, you now have 10K more of gross income to work with, and you want to save half of that and then freely spend the rest. That way, every time you get a raise, you're at least making saving a habit, and then not only are you going to be saving more, you're also increasing your lifestyle, which is very nice to do, but just not by that much. Goal number two is to be completely debt-free of everything except for mortgage debt by the time you're 40. The idea is that in your thirties, this is one of the prime earning decades to really start ramping up your net worth. The last thing you want are credit card payments and other existing loans that are slowing your compounding of wealth. And goal number three is that you should be systematically saving and investing 15 to 20% of your income if you can afford it. Even if you only can save and invest about 5% on a $60,000 salary, that still means you're investing $3,000 every single year. Even at $3,000 a year, if you get the average returns of the S&P 500 of 8%, by the time you're age 65, you're still going to end up with an ending balance of over $600,000. All right, let's get into our forties now. You can see that the average income in your forties is now $95,613. And the median is $67,144. That means the median income has gone up roughly 11% since the decade before. As you get older, you earn more. And now you can also see that the 75th percentile earns $117,000 compared to $100,000 the decade before. The top 10% and 1% are still increasing their incomes, of course, as well. In your forties, I think there are a few goals that you should be shooting for with this extra income, especially as this is one of the biggest peak earning decades of your life. Number one, you want to start planning for your ultimate retirement number. So you're probably still about 20 years away from retirement, but it's really good to figure out now what maybe your nest egg will need to look like in order to support your life in retirement at a later age. A good rule of thumb on this channel is that you want to live off of 4% to 4.5% of your total investable assets during retirement every single year. So if you were to use a million dollars as a benchmark and you had that invested in the market, the idea is that you can withdraw 4% of that million dollars every single year, and the market returns should at least keep your balance growing or at least flat while you withdraw from it. That way it gives you the highest probability of still having money throughout your entire retirement. Goal number two is to make sure your income covers your major expenses before they ever actually arrive. That means you could work on paying off your house, saving for a college fund, paying for home repairs, or taking care of your aging parents. Anything that you consider a major expense that is coming up, you should be using your income to plan accordingly for it. And goal number three in your forties is to use these peak earning years to reduce any major debts that you still have. In our thirties, we wanted to be debt free besides our mortgage. Well, in your forties, that's still the case, but now you want to start figuring out how you can be completely debt free by the time you turn 50. The less financial pressure you carry into your fifties, the more freedom that you will gain. And I think that in your fifties, it's not about grinding more and more, but perhaps maybe you can dial it back a bit. So in your forties, you want to set yourself up for your fifties so that in your fifties, you can choose the work and the projects that you care about and have the ability to say no to a lot of things. All right, now that we've reached the decade of the fifties, you can see that the average income is now $90,986. And the median is $63,350. The median income actually dropped since the age of 45. And as more people step back from work, the numbers are going to reflect that. Now, a fun fact here is that the income actually peaks at the age of 52 at 70 K. And then it goes down from there until the age of 62 when it starts climbing back up again. But we're going to talk about that in a little bit. You can see that even the top 90th and top 1% incomes went down as well in this decade compared to the decade before. So knowing this data, how should it affect our goals going into this decade of the ages of 50 to 59? So goal number one is to diversify your investments. Instead of putting everything into the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ, your investments should now be more of a balance to mix. In your fifties, that means you allocate perhaps some money to lower risk assets such as bonds and fixed income, treasuries, cash, and CDs. In the fifties, I don't think it's about getting huge returns anymore, but more capital preservation. You just want to make sure you're not making a life changing mistake of investing into something and you lose all your money. Goal number two in your fifties is to know how much you want to spend in retirement. It's likely that your kids are out of the house now, so you can get a really good sense of how much you're spending on a monthly and a yearly basis so that you can plan even further. Fidelity likes to recommend the 80% rule, which states that you should plan to spend about 80% of your salary in retirement. So here's their table on the screen if you'd like to reference that. And goal number three in your fifties is to start maxing out your retirement accounts, including catch-up contributions. For example, in 2026, the 401k contribution limit is now up to $32,500 per year for people over the age of 50. Compare that to the under the age of 50 number where the normal limit is $24,500. That's an extra 8k that you can catch up with every single year. The IRA and Roth IRA contribution limits are now $8,600 per year. Compare that to the under the age of 50, where the regular limit is $7,500 per year. So you want to take advantage of those. And then you want to finalize everything else financially going into your sixties, which means that if you can fill in any gaps between what you need and what you currently have saved, that's going to help a ton in your sixties as well. All right. So we've been talking about the decade of the sixties for a while. So let's talk about their income numbers. We can see that around the age of retirement of age 65, the median income coincidentally is also $70,001. If you remember, it's also the same median income at the age of 52, but at age 65, it goes back up again to $70,001. The average income is $101,000 and the 75th, 90th, and top 1% have gone back up by a little bit. Again, I think that this is happening because if you're 65 and retired, you aren't being counted towards these income numbers. So these numbers are more of a reflection of the last man standing in a way. It is pretty fascinating to see that. So if you have any theories on why you think this is happening, please leave them in the comments. Now in your sixties, I think there are three definitive goals. Number one, definitely have your house paid off. This is self-explanatory, but I feel like if you bought your house in your thirties, your 30 year mortgage should be finally finishing up now, if not already been paid off already. Goal number two in your sixties is that if you have dependents that rely on you, you should have an estate plan. Not having a proper estate plan can cause huge headaches for you and your family if you unexpectedly pass. And you want to be sure that you can transfer any assets that you have to your loved ones in a seamless way without any arguments and full instructions. And the third goal is very simple. It's that your retirement is teed up already. There's no more guessing about how much money you're going to need. You know exactly how much you'll need, how close you are to getting there. And you have a really solid understanding of your financials. Ideally at 65, you can retire very comfortably. You could write off into the sunset into a very happy place. Maybe you can go traveling, check out some museums, eat sushi, whatever you might like. All right, guys, I hope that you enjoyed this video. Let me know how much your income is and how much you have saved in the comments, if you feel comfortable sharing that. And if you're looking for a video on how you can actually financially achieve your goals this year in 2026, you want to check out this video right here. I think it's one of my best videos. And I think it's quite underrated on the channel. I hope to see you guys in that video or a future one on my channel. All right. Peace.