It’s getting lonelier at the top.
The income needed to be in Maryland’s 1% club grew more than 20% from 2020 to 2021, rising from $545,000 to $658,000. That resulted in 700 fewer members of the state’s 1% income club, according to a new Business Journals analysis of data from the IRS.
That steep increase in the 1% threshold is smaller than the growth seen nationwide. The cutoff for the nation’s top 1% of earners grew by 25% between 2020 and 2021 to $699,008, per the IRS. The data is based on the 2021 tax year and percentiles are based on total tax filers, so they don’t distinguish by marital or household status.
Maryland’s 21% jump between 2020 and 2021 was largely fueled by the surging salaries that accompanied the post-pandemic labor shortage and the turnover tsunami. Since 2016, the minimum cutoff to be in the top 1% of earners in Maryland has climbed by around $170,000, a jump of 35%.
