Cities Where Top Earners Make The Most Money

BAY AREA, CA — Are you one of the top earners in the Bay Area? A new study by SmartAsset on the income needed to be among the top earners in America's largest cities put three Bay Area cities in the top spots:

1. San Francisco
2. Fremont
3. San Jose

In this study, SmartAsset considered the 100 largest cities in the U.S. and ranked cities according to the income needed to be in the top 20-percent of working households.

In San Francisco, $250,000 is needed to be in the upper echelon. In Fremont it's $243,080, and in San Jose it's $219,023.

The study also noted that San Francisco's median annual income is over $112,000.

Fremont was also in the second position in last year's study. Since then, the income needed to be in the top 20-percent of earners here has grown by 8-percent.

Rounding out the top 5 cities for high earners are Arlington, Virginia and Seattle.

Are you curious about the bottom 5? In Detroit you'd need to earn just $65,603 to be in the Top 20-percent of earners. Next comes Cleveland, Toledo, Hialeah, Florida, and Newark, NJ.

All data for this report comes from the Census Bureau's 1-year American Community Survey.