What Do the Top Earners in the 50 Biggest U.S. Metros Make?

In New Orleans, the annual income is about $49,000. In St. Louis, it's about $60,000. But in Boston, Washington, D.C., Seattle, and San Francisco, annual salaries for the top half of earners range between $78,600 and $110,000.

The new study from HowMuch.net shows what one would have to earn to be in the top half of earners for the 50 largest metros in the nation. The site's director of content development, Raul Amoros, says that research shows that $75,000 is the average level of "peak of money-induced fulfillment," MarketWatch reports. “The bad news is that only six cities surpass the threshold of $75,000 for maximizing personal happiness. Every other metro area falls somewhere below, sometimes not even half as much as their more prosperous counterparts.”

A six-figure paycheck probably sounds like a lot of money to most people struggling to make ends meet across the U.S., but in the Bay Area, with its high-paying tech jobs and brutal cost of living, you’d have to make $110,040 to crack the top 50 percent of earners, according to U.S. Census figures. On the other end of the spectrum, you don’t even need to make $50,000 to move into the upper half In New Orleans and Memphis.

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