Are you considered middle class in Georgia? Here's the minimum income for a family in Ga.

What is the minimum annual income to be in the middle class in the United States?

A new report from ConsumerAffairs outlines what middle class looks like in each state. To come up with these numbers, ConsumerAffairs used a calculator from the Pew Research Center and an inflation calculator from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

According to the ConsumerAffairs analysis, Georgia's middle class income for a family of four in 2023 is $65,364, the same as Kansas and Montana.

Georgia's minimum for a middle class income is the second-highest in the region, with Florida slightly higher at $67,835. Alabama, North and South Carolina and Tennessee fall behind Georgia by several thousands of dollars.

The highest incomes to be considered middle class are in Hawaii, at $82,630, and then New York and Washington, D.C., where the minimum middle class annual income is $81,396.  Out of all 50 states, Georgia ranked right in the middle at No. 24.

What contributes to the increasing middle class income?

Middle class income for a family of four in Georgia has increased to over $65,000 for several reasons. First, wages in Georgia, and across the country, have increased.

In August 2022, U.S. wages increased by 6.7%, according to the Federal Reserve of Atlanta. While wages across the board have decreased to a 5.3% wage increase in August 2023, U.S. wage increases are still higher compared to pre-pandemic wage increase of 3.7%.

Two Georgia lottery winners: As Powerball lottery jackpot grows to $1.2 billion, two tickets in Georgia win $50,000

Fire at Last Resort: Owner: Fire at The Last Resort restaurant 'will not impact us in any way'

Wages have increased because there's fewer workers in the workforce since several years ago, yet there's still jobs to be filled, said Josh Kinsler, department head of economics at the University of Georgia.

Kinsler noted that the rise in wages is seen across the workforce, but there are certain sectors that have seen faster increases.

"In every sector, but particularly for service and leisure, are the places where the wages have gone up the fastest," Kinsler said. "Those industries shut down during the pandemic almost completely, and so those are the places where they needed to be very aggressive in hiring workers, because they needed to get back on their feet.""In a tight labor market, those are the places that really need the workers. That's also going to raise wages."

And while wages have increased, the share of middle class incomes across the U.S. has decreased over the past 50 years, while the share of low and upper income tiers have increased.

"The shrinking of the middle class has been accompanied by an increase in the share of adults in the upper-income tier — from 14% in 1971 to 21% in 2021 — as well as an increase in the share who are in the lower-income tier, from 25% to 29%," according to the Pew Research Center.

Kinsler said, for example, since the pandemic, many older workers have retired. That's significant because these older workers belong to one of the biggest working cohorts: Baby Boomers. And the newer, younger workforce do not have as many workers filling the jobs that are available. So there's a worker shortage.

Inflation has also affected the middle class income levels.

Oliver Rust, head of product at inflation data aggregator Truflation, told ConsumerAffairs that post-COVID, inflation has increased, reaching a peak of 9% in June 2022. Rust believes that inflation may be a cause, although not the defining factor of the shrinking middle class.

"The income level that is required to be considered 'middle-class' would rise with inflation," Kinsler said. "When inflation goes up, the income needed to purchase goods and services also go up. A key demand from autoworkers is a significant wage hike so that they can maintain or improve their standard in the face of significant inflation and growing corporate profit."

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: A look at minimum annual income to be middle class in Georgia