Nearly one-third of American households, 29%, live in "lower class" households, the Pew Research Center finds in a 2018 report. The median income of that group was $25,624 in 2016.

Pew defines the lower class as adults whose annual household income is less than two-thirds the national median. That's after incomes have been adjusted for household size, since smaller households require less money to support the same lifestyle as larger ones.

The share of U.S. adults considered lower class varies depending on where you live, Pew notes: "The metropolitan areas with the largest shares of lower-income adults are located primarily in the Southwest." The metro with the highest share is Laredo, Texas, where almost half of households (49%) are considered lower class.

More than half of American households, 52%, are considered middle class, Pew reports, while 19% are upper class. The median income of middle class households was $78,442 in 2016. For upper income households, it was $187,872.

According to the report, "the wealth gaps between upper-income families and lower- and middle-income families in 2016 were at the highest levels recorded." The widening gap is "the continuation of a decades-long trend," Pew adds: In 1970, when it first analyzed income data in America, the median income of upper-income households was 6.3 times that of lower-income households. That ratio increased to 7.3 in 2016.

More recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau finds that the gap between the rich and the poor has grown since 2016 and hit a new record in 2018.