Home | Newsletter | Advertise
loading...

DC's Top Earners Take Home 13 Times More Than Lowest Earners

  • February 20th 2014

by Lark Turner

✉️ Want to forward this article? Click here.

DC's Top Earners Take Home 13 Times More Than Lowest Earners: Figure 1

DC’s biggest earners take home more than 13 times what its lowest earners make, a Brookings Institute study released on Thursday found.

The city ranked fifth among cities with the biggest salary gap between the top 5 percent of earners and the bottom 20 percent. Atlanta topped the list.

DC's Top Earners Take Home 13 Times More Than Lowest Earners: Figure 2

In its report, Brookings noted that while cities with lower income inequality tended to share certain traits — most were in the South or West, for example, and typically either incorporated suburban areas or were basically very large suburbs — the same couldn’t be said of the cities with high income inequality.

“San Francisco’s ratio is high because its wealthy households have very high incomes, considerably higher than in any other major city,” the report states. “Miami’s ratio is high primarily because its poor households have very low incomes, third-lowest among the 50 largest cities.”

Broadly, though, bigger cities took the lion’s share of nationwide inequality. Here’s a graph showing that trend:

DC's Top Earners Take Home 13 Times More Than Lowest Earners: Figure 3

To no one’s surprise, the report noted that income inequality was likely to be a big factor in upcoming mayoral elections, including those here in Washington.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dcs_top_earners_take_home_13_times_more_than_lowest/8148.

DC Real Estate Guides

Short guides to navigating the DC-area real estate market

We've collected all our helpful guides for buying, selling and renting in and around Washington, DC in one place. Start browsing below!

First-Timer Primers

Intro guides for first-time home buyers

Red Flags Revealed During a Home Inspection Top 5 Tax Breaks For Homeowners Tax Relief for DC Homeowners
Condo Fee Tutorial What is a Rent Back? 10 Ways To Tell If a Home Renovation is Well Done
Obtaining a Basic Business License For Your Rental What is an Adjustable Rate Mortgage? The Splitting the Rent Formula
How Much Cash Do You Need to Buy a House? Is This Condo Building Financially Healthy? Interest Rates and Mortgage Points
The Scoop on Mortgage Insurance

Unique Spaces

Awesome and unusual real estate from across the DC Metro

The Most Intriguing Loft in DC The R Street Firehouse DC’s One-Room House
Dupont Circle’s Old Frat House To Become Alley Home Best Transition From a Garage To a Home The Roundhouse
Tilden Gardens Restaurant-Turned-Home Hits Market Next Week Logan Circle’s Most Intriguing Garage Frank Lloyd Wright Goes Green in Kensington
Sears Bungalow Gets a Modern Makeover Old Town General Store Becomes Three-Level Home Making the Most of a Skinny House
A Studio 27 Renovation on Capitol Hill Once a Carriage House, Now a Home The Bank that Became a Home
From Pie to Hooch to Heroin to Home The Live-Aboards of Gangplank Marina A Treehouse with Rock Creek Park As A Backyard
Modern Tranquility in Sperryville Saddle Up For Stable Living Throwing a Curve at 550 Square Feet
A Modern Hilltop Retreat Tilden Street Restaurant Becomes Spacious Home Focus on Design: A Vastu Unit at 22 West
The DC Area’s First Net Zero Home A Yankee Goes Green DC’s First Carbon Neutral Home
Eco-Friendly Alley House Off H Street The Gym, The Stables and The Firehouse