Only 6% of Americans who make over $100,000 say they're upper class

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Very few people in America are willing to identify as upper class, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

About 94% of people in that income bracket (over $100,000) identified as middle class, upper middle class, or lower middle class while only 6% called themselves upper class.

Here are the results of the survey:

Pew class income survey

Pew Research Center

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While a family of three with an income of up to $122,000 is still considered "middle income," the over-$100,000 range also includes families with much higher salaries than that.

Pew middle class

Pew Research Center

And although only 6% of survey respondents identified as upper class, Pew's data shows that 20% of American adults are in the "upper income" bracket.

Income classes US

Pew Research Center

The reason why so many Americans identify as middle class when almost half o them are actually in a higher income bracket is because "in a self-defined classless society, people will naturally not want to separate themselves from their fellow citizens," according to The Brookings Institution.

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Economic inequality continues to grow in America. Pew notes that only families in the upper-income bracket have seen a significant increase in wealth since the early 1990s, while the share of adults living in middle-income households is falling.

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