Household Income
The household income indicator includes two measures: median household income and Gini coefficient.
The median household income is the income amount where half of the households earn more and half earn less than this income.
The Gini coefficient is a measure of income inequality. A value of 0 indicates perfect equality, where everyone has the same income. A value of 1 indicate perfect inequality where one person or household receives all the income and everyone else receives nothing. Higher values of Gini coefficient indicate higher inequality.
In the decade between 2013 and 2022, the median household income of Washingtonians increased consistently. In the same time period, income inequality has also increased from 0.45 to 0.46. While the number increase is small, incremental changes in the Gini coefficient are important as they show a trend of whether income disparities are widening or closing.
Income inequality in Washington is also evidence by disparities across geography and race. The county with the lowest median household income, Whitman County, has less than half the median household income in the highest county, King County. Similarly, the median income of the Asian population has almost two times the median household income of the American Indian or Alaska Native population.
It is important to note that while the median household income seems like a large number, half of the households in Washington have income that is below this number, and many people are still struggling to make ends meet (refer to Economic Hardship indicator).
ACS 5-year estimate data are chosen over ACS 1-year estimate data because they are generally considered as more reliable for small populations and allow for the analysis of data across all 39 counties.
The median household income divides a population into two groups– one half having an income above the amount, and the other hald having an income below that amount.