Median household income versus the median daily Air Quality Index. Markers are sized by total population for the 55 metropolitan areas in the 50 states and D.C. with more than one million residents (ACS 5-year, 2024; EPA AQS, 2024).
The EPA's Air Quality System (AQS) compiles measurements from air-monitoring stations across the country. Its annual summaries roll those daily readings up to the Core Based Statistical Area, giving each metro's median and peak Air Quality Index and a count of days in each AQI category. The AQI runs from 0 to 500, where higher values mean worse air; this snapshot uses the median (typical-day) AQI for 2024.
The American Community Survey (ACS) is a continuous survey run by the U.S. Census Bureau that produces detailed social, economic, housing, and demographic estimates for the United States. The 5-year estimates pool 60 months of responses to give reliable figures for geographies of every size, including metropolitan statistical areas. This snapshot draws median household income and total population from the 2024 release, covering 2020–2024.
Every dataset behind a snapshot is loaded into this site's data warehouse, where it is standardized and documented with its schema, provenance, and governance. The analysis code that produced this figure is not published; the underlying dataset is fully referenceable in the warehouse.
Source data is subject to the terms of its original provider, cited above. The figures and accompanying text on this page may be reused with attribution to ryanwaked.com.
U.S. EPA AQS (2024) & U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year (2024) – via ryanwaked.comU.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2024). "Air Quality System, annual AQI by CBSA" [dataset], table epa_aqi_cbsa_2024; and U.S. Census Bureau (2024). "American Community Survey, 5-year estimates" [dataset], table census_acs5_2024. Compiled and presented by Ryan Waked. Retrieved July 10, 2026 from https://ryanwaked.com/data#epa_aqi_cbsa_2024.