Defining income groups

Defining income groups

This analysis follows the same methodology presented in “Finding Time.” For ease of composition, we use the term “family” throughout the brief, even though the analysis is done at the household level. We split households in our sample into three income groups. Low-income households are those in the bottom third of the income distribution, which means those earning less than $25,440 per year in 2015 dollars. Professional households are those in the top fifth of the income distribution who have at least one household member with a college degree or higher; in 2015 dollars, these households have an income of $71,158 or higher. Everyone else falls in the middle-class category.