To be considered middle class in 2019, a household in New Hampshire needed a minimum annual income of $83,151. By 2023, that jumped to $108,470, according to new data from ConsumerAffairs, a journal of consumer research.
That latest bit of data gives New Hampshire the distinction of having the second highest middle-class threshold rank in the United States, trailing only its neighbor Massachusetts.
“Like Massachusetts, New Hampshire’s middle class earned much higher wages than the rest of the country in 2023. The state’s lowest-earning middle-class workers still brought home more than $108,000,” said ConsumerAffairs.
The ConsumerAffairs analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows a lot has changed in what is considered middle class. The following shows the changing range — from lower middle class to higher middle class — in New Hampshire since 2019:
2019
Lower-middle class: $83,151
Upper-middle class: $138,586
2020
(No data because of COVID)
2021
Lower-middle class: $97,495
Upper-middle class: $162,492
2022
Lower-middle class: $101,262
Upper-middle class: $168,770
2023
Lower-middle class: $108,470
Upper-middle class: $180,784
It’s noteworthy that from 2019 to 2023, the entry point for Granite Staters to lower-middle class distinction had risen by more than $25,000.
Based on the trends for the last five years, “we anticipate that both the lower and upper ends of the middle-class income range will continue to rise in 2024,” a spokesperson for ConsumerAffairs said.
According to the organization, while wages have grown in recent years, inflation and higher expenses for essentials, such as housing and groceries, make it harder to maintain middle-class status.
In its own analysis of Census data, the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute (NHFPI) said more than half of renters in the state were cost-burdened by housing, and renters with lower incomes faced even more significant hurdles paying for a place to live.
The institute noted that the term “cost-burdened” is used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to describe households that pay more than 30% of their income toward housing.
In 2023, according to NHFPI, approximately 51% of New Hampshire’s 157,000 renter households met the criteria of being housing cost-burdened, compared to about 28% of the 258,000 owner households paying a mortgage and about 20% of 155,000 owner households without a mortgage.
Meanwhile, New Hampshire’s median household income grew to about $97,000, which was an increase from approximately $90,000 in 2022. Even after adjusting for inflation and accounting for statistical uncertainty, the institute said the median Granite State household experienced a boost in the real purchasing power of the median household in 2023.
Going into 2025, a majority of Granite Staters feel fairly confident about their finances, according to a poll by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center on behalf of Business and Industry Association (BIA).
When it comes to their personal finances, the report found 44% of Granite Staters expect their situation will be better a year from now, 30% think they’ll be worse off, and 26% think their finances will be about the same as they are now.
When it comes to business finances, 37% think businesses in the state will enjoy good times financially in the coming year, 17% expect bad times, and 45% expect mixed conditions.
The poll was done within days after the 2024 presidential election. The optimism it recorded was fueled primarily by Republican and Independent voters.
From a similar poll done in August to this most current post-election poll, the survey center found self-identified Republicans and Independents “are significantly more likely to expect to be better off in a year than they were in August” while expectations of Democrats have dropped.
“Financial expectations driven by partisanship have increased during recent presidential administrations,” said the survey center. Democrats, along with some independents, had their expectations buoyed during the administration of Democrat Joe Biden, while Republicans express confidence in the GOP White House of Donald Trump.
Elections, too, often turn on voters’ perceptions of the economy and how well or poorly they think they’re doing relative to the economy.
CNN exit polling during the November election showed about two-thirds of voters felt the economy was in bad shape, a sentiment that greatly benefited Trump, who, like Republican Ronald Reagan in his successful campaign against incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter in 1980, kept asking the question: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”
Trump has promised to make the economy better.
NH Business Review asked Phil Sletten, research director at the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, the question: Can economic policy driven by politics have a direct effect on pocketbook issues, such as the cost of groceries?
“Overall, existing research suggests policies that deploy resources directly to residents with low incomes, as well as those that support public services, employment and infrastructure, are the most effective at stimulating economic growth,” he answwered.
He cited a Moody’s Analytics review of direct investment from the 2021 American Rescue Plan, passed by Congress and signed by Biden in his first year of office.
For every $1 invested in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), for example, $1.61 went into the economy. For supplemental unemployment insurance, it was $1.49 into the economy for every $1 invested.
Other research by the Congressional Budget Office, according to Sletten, shows transfer payments to state and local governments for infrastructure improvements and transfer payments to individuals (such as SNAP benefits and unemployment compensation) are among the best boosters of the economy.
Tax reduction for higher-income individuals and corporate tax provisions primarily designed to help business cash flow had the smallest economic multipliers, suggesting they had the least positive impact on the economy per dollar spent, according to the research cited by Sletten.
On the state level, which will see a return of a GOP governor as well as a GOP-controlled House and Senate, politics often color tax policies, and Sletten said taxes affect the finances of poorer Granite Staters than they do richer Granite Staters.
“State and local taxes are not evenly distributed across income groups in New Hampshire,” Sletten said, citing a NHFPI report from earlier this year. “Combined state and local taxes in New Hampshire require residents with lower incomes to pay a larger percentage of their income than those with higher incomes.”
“Individuals and families in the bottom 20% of income earners have a combined effective state and local tax rate more than three times the rate for those at the top 1% of the income scale in New Hampshire,” he said. “The higher effective tax rates for households with lower incomes are driven primarily by property taxes.”
See the report here: https://nhfpi.org/blog/granite-staters-with-lowest-incomes-have-highest-effective-state-and-local-tax-rate/
