US cities where real household income grew the most since 1990
Of 843 US cities with 50,000+ residents, 593 are richer in inflation-adjusted terms than in 1990. Fulshear, TX leads at $124,408 per household.
Most American cities are richer than they were in 1990. After converting 1990 median household income into 2024 dollars with the BLS Consumer Price Index, we compared every US city of 50,000 or more residents across the two endpoints. Of 843 cities with data in both years, 593 are richer in real terms, and a smaller group is poorer (the subject of our companion study on cities where real income fell).
Fulshear, TX leads the nation, with real median household income up $124,408 per household since 1990. The 25 cities with the largest real gains are below.
| # | City | 1990 (in 2024 $) | Latest | Real change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fulshear, TX | $62,627 | $187,035 | $124,408 |
| 2 | Celina, TX | $57,215 | $170,894 | $113,679 |
| 3 | Palo Alto, CA | $132,803 | $231,101 | $98,298 |
| 4 | Hoboken, NJ | $83,698 | $180,579 | $96,881 |
| 5 | Holly Springs, NC | $46,501 | $135,578 | $89,077 |
| 6 | Mountain View, CA | $101,837 | $189,917 | $88,080 |
| 7 | Dublin, CA | $128,908 | $214,385 | $85,477 |
| 8 | Cupertino, CA | $155,013 | $234,707 | $79,694 |
| 9 | Sunnyvale, CA | $111,370 | $186,170 | $74,800 |
| 10 | Santa Clara, CA | $107,300 | $178,958 | $71,658 |
| 11 | Leander, TX | $74,616 | $139,048 | $64,432 |
| 12 | Commerce City, CO | $49,026 | $111,972 | $62,946 |
| 13 | Lehi, UT | $70,044 | $131,299 | $61,255 |
| 14 | Redmond, WA | $101,521 | $162,560 | $61,039 |
| 15 | Frisco, TX | $89,201 | $150,212 | $61,011 |
| 16 | San Francisco, CA | $80,196 | $140,970 | $60,774 |
| 17 | Bellevue, WA | $105,123 | $165,576 | $60,453 |
| 18 | Marana, AZ | $53,390 | $112,606 | $59,216 |
| 19 | McKinney, TX | $65,368 | $124,215 | $58,847 |
| 20 | Fremont, CA | $122,958 | $181,506 | $58,548 |
| 21 | Kirkland, WA | $92,251 | $150,414 | $58,163 |
| 22 | Wake Forest, NC | $66,664 | $123,802 | $57,138 |
| 23 | Redwood City, CA | $103,112 | $157,814 | $54,702 |
| 24 | Somerville, MA | $77,894 | $132,572 | $54,678 |
| 25 | Castle Rock, CO | $91,311 | $145,197 | $53,886 |
Read the list with this in mind. The very top is dominated by two kinds of places: fast-growing exurbs that were small rural communities in 1990 and have since filled with high-earning commuter households (so the "gain" partly reflects a wholesale change in who lives there), and established high-cost cities that were already affluent and pulled further ahead. Both are real income gains as the Census Bureau measures them, but they tell different stories. We do not normalize for annexation or greenfield growth; each city is reported on its own boundary as the Census recorded it in each year.
How is 1990 income converted to 2024 dollars?
Using the BLS Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) annual average. A 1990 dollar equals 2.400 2024 dollars.
Why do small Texas exurbs top the list?
Several cities at the top were small rural communities in 1990 that have since grown into large, high-income commuter suburbs. The real gain is genuine as measured, but it partly reflects a change in who lives there rather than rising wages for the same households.
Why limit the list to cities of 50,000 or more?
Smaller cities have wider ACS confidence intervals on the median household income estimate, which makes a 1990-to-latest difference less reliable. The 50,000 threshold matches the floor the Census Bureau uses for many of its city-level publications.
We compared median household income in 1990 and the latest ACS 5-year vintage for every US city with at least 50,000 current residents and full data in both years. 1990 nominal dollars were converted to 2024 dollars using the BLS Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), annual averages: a 1990 dollar equals 2.400 2024 dollars.
1990 income comes from Summary Tape File 3A (STF3A), table P080 (Median household income in 1989). The latest figure is American Community Survey 5-year table B19013. The list is sorted by the absolute change in 2024 dollars, the figure a household actually feels, not by percentage.
"City" means a Census-designated place of type "city" in the CensusEasy database. We do not adjust for annexation or for places that grew from rural settlements into large suburbs between 1990 and today; each city is reported on the boundary the Census Bureau used in each year.
You may cite or republish these findings, and the downloadable dataset is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Reuse requires that you credit CensusEasy and link back to this page so readers can verify the underlying data.
CensusEasy Data Team (2026). "US cities where real household income grew the most since 1990." CensusEasy. Retrieved from https://censuseasy.com/studies/us-cities-where-real-household-income-grew-most-since-1990
- 1990 Decennial Census - Summary Tape File 3A (STF3A), public-domain CD-ROM extracts. Median household income from table P080.
- American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates - US Census Bureau, latest published vintage, table B19013 (median household income).
- BLS Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) - annual averages, used to convert nominal dollars to 2024 dollars. US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- The full underlying tables for every place are on each place's CensusEasy page; click any row above to open the place page.
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