About

Wealth NYC compares New York City income in tax records and in Census Bureau data.

Why

New York’s income peaks look more extreme through tax records. Switch between the IRS and Census Bureau to see the difference, with the same household counts, years, and dollar scale. Tax records include reported capital gains, one part of income that the Census Bureau’s household survey excludes.

Scope

Both views show averages for ZIP areas. The tax view divides reported income by Census household counts; it does not link returns to households. It does not estimate net worth or identify individual owners. The Data page provides the calculations, source dates, limits, and downloads. Wealth NJ applies the same comparison to New Jersey.

Read the map

Taller stacks mean higher annual income per household. Colors brighten up to $1.2 million, then stay at the brightest shade. Select a ZIP area to see both estimates and the role of investment income. Use Flat view to reach areas hidden behind tall stacks.

Built

A static website using MapLibre GL JS, with a Python data pipeline using pandas, requests, and Shapely. The pipeline joins ZIP-area sources, adjusts IRS income for inflation, and exports the map and downloads. The site uses no account system or analytics.

Independence

No agency reviewed this site.

Credits

Data from the IRS, the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and New York City agencies. Claude and Codex were used in development.

Reuse

Code is BSD 3-Clause licensed. Compiled data can be reused with attribution; the source data retain their own terms. Include the income measure, years and source when you republish a figure.

Contact

Report an issue on GitHub. For a data issue, include the ZIP area, measure, and year range.