If Americans can no longer agree on what is the middle class, it's probably because the definition varies wildly according to where they are in the country, as shown by a new report that found cities with lower living costs had more families reaching the middle-class income threshold.
At the national level, a family of four must earn at least $59,828 to be considered part of the middle class, according to the recently published 2024 USA Today Homefront report shared with Newsweek. But there are places where achieving that same quality of life requires much lower wages, and others where families would need to bring home a much higher income.
The vanishing American middle class, which has been shrinking for the past 50 years, according to a recent Pew Research Center study, has been the target of both presidential candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, during this election cycle, as working class voters are likely to be crucial in determining the result of the race.
Hit by the rising cost of living and skyrocketing housing costs in the past few years, the majority of voters have been concerned about the state of the U.S. economy during the past few months. But the situation a middle-class family can be facing in the U.S., as well as their concerns, can change drastically across the country.
In Brownsville, Texas, for example, a family of four can be considered middle class with an income of just $52,000 thanks to the city's relatively affordable cost of living, which is 15 percent below the national average.
In San Francisco, California, a city where the cost of living is 18 percent higher than the national average, a lot more than that—to be precise, over $70,000—is needed for a family to achieve that same middle-class lifestyle.
These are the 10 most affordable cities in the U.S. for the American middle class, according to data from the 2024 USA Today Homefront report, and their median household income:
- Yuma, Arizona ($61,977)
- Las Cruces, New Mexico ($55,012)
- Edinburg, Texas ($61,059)
- McAllen, Texas ($60,200)
- Fargo, North Dakota ($61,422)
- Columbia, Mississippi ($62,972)
- Wichita Falls, Texas ($60,772)
- Davenport, Iowa ($69,595)
- Little Rock, Arkansas ($59,762)
- Wichita, Kansas ($61,281)
To obtain these numbers, USA Today Homefront analyzed the cost of living and income levels in 349 cities across the U.S., adjusting income brackets based on local factors. Some 83 percent of the cities analyzed had a median income high enough for a family of four to be considered middle class.
Yuma, Arizona, was the best city in the country for a family of four to be considered middle class, with a median income that's $10,000 higher than the minimum middle-class threshold. Overall and perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the best cities for middle class families to live in are concentrated in the Southwest, South and Midwest, where the cost of living is generally lower than the rest of the country.
There are also cities across the country where the middle class is being slowly priced out. These, according to the USA Today Homefront report, are the least affordable cities for a middle class family of four:
- Hartford, Connecticut ($42,397)
- Waterbury, Connecticut ($43,420)
- Detroit, Michigan ($38,080)
- Cleveland, Ohio ($39,041)
- Newark, New Jersey ($53,818)
- Baton Rouge, Louisiana ($41,651)
- Springfield, Massachusetts ($47,101)
- New Haven, Connecticut ($51,158)
- Jackson, Mississippi ($42,336)
- Allentown, Pennsylvania ($47,175)
Newsweek contacted USA Today Homefront for comment by email on Tuesday morning.