For years, social media posts have claimed that half of the people in America made less than $35,000 a year. Based on the most recent data we could find, though, that didn’t appear to be true.
The most notable post we found with the claim was a tweet from a user posted on Nov. 28, 2021, that said the reason why Americans weren’t having children or buying homes as much as they used to was because half of the country earned less than $35,000:
Half of America makes less than 35k.
Stop asking us why we’re not having children. Stop asking us why we’re not buying homes. Stop asking us why we can’t save. Stop asking why we don’t get a better job.
Ask corporations why they’re paying their employees low wages.
— Alexis Cardarella (@thatquietsong) November 28, 2021
In May 2023, a Twitter user posted a screenshot of the original tweet, saying the account had “nailed it”:
Fucking nailed it @thatquietsong pic.twitter.com/42hE7l0nyY
— Fuck You I Quit (@fuckyouiquit) May 16, 2023
The original Twitter post continued to spread on other social media platforms. For example, we found a Reddit post from November 2022 about the claim, as well as TikTok posts in September 2022, October 2022, and May 2023. We also found unrelated posts about the claim on Facebook in May 2023.
Here’s what we know: The 2021 U.S. Health and Human Service poverty guidelines stated that a U.S. family of six needed to make more than $35,580 to be above the federal poverty line. (In 2023, an U.S. family of five needed to make more than $35,140 to be above the federal poverty line.)
In September 2022, the U.S. Census Bureau released a report on 2021 U.S. income, and it’s the most recent data available. According to the report, 9.3% of Americans across all races made under $15,000; 8.1% of Americans made $15,000 to $24,999; and 7.8% of Americans made $25,000 to $34,999. Added together, 25.2% of Americans across all races made under $35,000 in 2021.
Also, according to that 2022 U.S. Census Bureau report, there was no racial group in which half the people made less than $35,000. But the racial group that came closest to that was Black Americans.
The report found 37.6% of Black people made under $35,000 in 2021; 35.3% of American Indian and Alaska Native people made less than $35,000; 27.9% of people who were two or more races; 23.4% of white people; and 19.1% of Asian people, according to the report. (Some 28.9% of Hispanic people of any race made less than $35,000 in 2021, and at the time of this writing, the census defined Hispanic as an ethnicity, not a race.)
Data on U.S. income for 2022 and 2023 from the U.S. Census Bureau was not available.