Before taxes, 47.1 percent of households in the USA earn more than $50,000. (click title to entry - thank you)

That leaves the remainder of the country, households not persons, earning less than $50,000.

Of the remaining household earning less than $50,000 before taxes a full 33% earn less than $25,000.

These are 2009 statistics.

Of that 33%, a full 15.6% earn less than $5000 per household before taxes.

Table 1. Income Distribution Measures, by Definition of Income: 2009  (click here)

CAUTION: Whenever a base of an income distribution is relatively small, the medians, means, and percent distributions are extremely unreliable because of the limited size of the sample. Pay particular attention to the standard errors for small population estimates, especially if the base is less than 75,000.