$100K A Year Is Now Lower-Middle Class In 12 States — Is The Game Rigged?

$100K A Year Is Now Lower-Middle Class In 12 States — Is The Game Rigged?

Six figures used to mean you made it. A new analysis says in 12 states, it barely means you’re comfortable.

The post going viral this weekend — 1.5 million views and counting — put it in one line: “They really rigged the game when we became adults.” Underneath it is a real study. MoneyLion ran the numbers using the Pew Research Center’s definition of middle class (two-thirds to double the median household income, split into thirds) against U.S. Census Bureau data, and found 12 states where a $100,000 income lands in the lower-middle class — the bottom third of the middle class.

The 12 states, ranked by how high the lower-middle-class ceiling runs: Massachusetts (up to $116,476), New Jersey ($115,882), Maryland ($114,339), Hawaii ($111,939), California ($111,277), New Hampshire ($110,869), Washington ($110,432), Colorado, Utah, Connecticut, Alaska and Virginia (up to $102,322).

In five of those states — Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, Hawaii and California — the median household income itself is over $100,000, which means a six-figure earner is making less than the typical household around them. Meanwhile the same $100,000 in Mississippi sits near the TOP of the middle class. Same money, different America.

One honest note for New Yorkers: New York did not make this list of 12 — but with New Jersey sitting at No. 2, everybody in the tri-state knows the feeling the post is talking about.

So let’s argue about it. Is $100K still “making it” where you live — or did the goalposts really move while we were growing up?

Sources: MoneyLion analysis (Pew Research Center definition; U.S. Census Bureau 2024 ACS data), reported by the New York Post; the viral reaction post via Valuetainment on X.