Meanwhile, the top-earning state is Connecticut, where residents need to earn about $656,000 to be in the top income bracket.
Washington state has seen the most dramatic increase in what it takes to become wealthy in recent years, according to the report. In 2017, a salary of about $378,000 would put you in the 5 percent club. By 2022, you'll need a salary of more than $544,000 to stay at that level.
Andrew Murray, chief data content researcher at GoBankingRates, said about 44% of the increase was driven by rising wealth in Seattle, a tech hub that's home to fast-growing companies like Amazon.
Overall, wealthy Americans have gotten significantly better off since 2017. At the time, only Connecticut and Washington, DC, had a 5% maximum income threshold of $500,000.
Five years later, that number has grown to 11 U.S. states and Washington, D.C.: Washington, California, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Virginia, Colorado, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Maryland, and Connecticut.
This has a lot to do with the fiscal response to the pandemic, Murray says: “Strong COVID-19 countermeasures bolstered the economy, leading to higher stock prices, real estate values, and savings — all of which were particularly beneficial for the wealthiest Americans, whose already high incomes saw dramatic increases.”
While employers have raised the wages of some minimum wage workers during the pandemic recovery, “their share of total wealth in the country has actually fallen as the rich got even richer,” Murray said.
Here, in alphabetical order, is the salary needed to be considered in the top 5% of earners in each state and Washington DC.
