Virginia Leads in Personal income, West Virginia is Last: WalletHub

Virginia is the state where residents have the highest income, while West Virginians have the lowest, according to a report from the personal-finance website WalletHub.

The median household income in the U.S. is $74,600, WalletHub says.

WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across three metrics: the average annual income of the top 5%, the average for the bottom 20%, and the median for all of the state’s residents. Because of WalletHub’s formula, Viriginia is ranked number one with a total score of 69.5, although neither its median annual income, $89,393, nor the average income of the top 5%, $518,296, is the highest in those categories.

“Virginia is the state where people have the highest income, when balancing between the median, top 5% and bottom 20% of earners,”  says WalletHub analyst Cassandra Happe. “The median annual income in Virginia is $89,393, which ranks as the 17th-highest in the country, so it seems like many people are skewed to either side of the wealth spectrum.”

The states with the highest income scores are:

1. Virginia
2. New Jersey
3. New York
4. Connecticut
5. Washington
6. Utah
7. Illinois
8. Minnesota
9. Colorado
10. Massachusetts

The states with the lowest income scores are:

42. Kentucky
43. Alaska
44. Alabama
45. Rhode Island
46. Louisiana
47. Vermont
48. Maine
49. Mississippi
50. New Mexico
51. West Virginia

Happe notes that the highest-earning 10% of individuals in the United States earn over 12 times more than those in the lowest-earning 10%, based on the latest Census data.

For all the figures, including where your state ranks, go to the WalletHub report.