Here's how much you need to make to be in Virginia's top 1%
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Virginia's top 1% of earners may make less money than you think.
Driving the news: Virginians who earn $643,848 or more are considered part of the state's 1%, per new SmartAsset analysis of IRS tax filer data.
- That's slightly less than the national average of $652,657.
State of play: Southern states have some of the country's lowest income thresholds for their top 1%. But Virginia is an exception, ranking 12th in the nation for how much its residents have to make.
Be smart: The median household income in Virginia is $80,963, per census data.
- It's $74,151 metro Richmond and $51,770 in the city proper.
- Unsurprisingly, nearly all of the richest people in Virginia, the billionaires, live in Northern Virginia.
Zoom out: You have to be rich rich — making more than $952,902 — to be considered the 1% in Connecticut, where the income threshold is the highest of any state.
- Washington, D.C., where people in the top 1% make more than $1 million, would take first place if it were a state.
The big picture: The top 1% of U.S. families held more than a third of the country's total wealth in 2019, up from 27% in 1989, the Congressional Budget Office reported last year. Households in the bottom half of the distribution held only 2% of the country's wealth.