About this calculator The data used in this calculator was provided by the Brookings Institution from its analysis of the global middle class, covering 97 percent of the world’s population.

If you wanted to be in the upper class, you’d need a pre-tax income of $90,250. If there were four people in your household, the middle-class range would adjust to $60,165 and $180,400.

Now using the calculator we can determine exactly what it takes to be in the middle-class in Chicago. For a single person, you would need to make between $34,556 and $103,665, while a family of ...