Here’s the typical salary of Americans at every age

Younger
workers tend to have lower incomes than older
workers.

Strelka
Institute for Media, Architecture and
Design/Flickr

• Workers’ salaries vary by age, with
  older workers tending to make more than younger
  workers.
• Using data from the US Census Bureau’s 2017 American
  Community Survey, Business Insider estimated the median income
  for full-time, year-round workers at every age.
• Incomes tended to gradually increase with age among
  workers in their 20s and 30s. There is a plateau, however,
  among workers lasting from their late 30s to their early
  60s.

Workers’ salaries vary by age, with
older workers tending to make more than younger workers.

The US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey asks millions of
people every year about various social, demographic, and economic
aspects of their lives. One of the topics on the survey is
respondents’ total income from all sources.

Using individual-level data from the Minnesota Population
Center’s 2017 ACS Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, we
found the median total personal income for each year of age from
18 to 70 among respondents who said they had year-round,
full-time employment, here defined as usually working at least 35
hours a week and 50 to 52 weeks in the past year.

The results show an interesting pattern. Incomes tended to
gradually increase with age among workers in their 20s and 30s,
with the median full-time employed 18-year-old earning about
$17,700 and the median 37-year-old earning about $50,000.

But there is a plateau among workers from their late 30s to early
60s, with workers in that age range all having median incomes of
about $50,000 to $55,000. Full-time workers above the usual
retirement age of 65, however, enjoyed higher median incomes than
younger workers.

Read more:
We did the math to calculate how much money you need to save
monthly to buy a home by 35

It’s worth noting that these figures represent a snapshot in
time, comparing workers of different ages in 2017, rather than a
trend showing how the typical worker’s earnings change through
time. That is, there’s no guarantee that a typical 25-year-old’s
income in 2017 will grow over the next decade to match what a
typical 35-year-old’s current income is, for example.

Here’s the median total personal income for full-time, year-round
workers at each year of age, showing the rise through the mid-30s
and the plateau until retirement age:

Business Insider/Andy Kiersz, data
from IPUMS USA

And here’s a look at the specific medians for each year:

Business Insider/Andy Kiersz, data
from IPUMS USA