I am looking for a very simple chart that provides the number of
people in the United States earning various levels of income. The X
axis would list various incomes (for example, the first would be less
than $15,000, the 2nd group between $15,000 and $20,000, the 3rd
between $20,000 and $25,000, etc.) and the Y axis would contain the
number of people in the U.S. who earn income in that salary/income
range. My assumption is that the chart will provide a bell-curve with
the peak of the curve around $37,000 in annual income. There are 130
million workers in the U.S. and the average income is $37,000. I do
not want just a data table from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but
the actual bell-shaped graph. If the data table comes with it, that's
fine (that would be great actually), but I am interested in a simple
graph that contains the data.

Dear jobdig,

Since I did not find a ready-made graph with the data you desire, I
have created one myself, using 2005 in income distribution data from
the Census Bureau. Please click this link to download the graph I have
prepared for you:
http://home.arcor.de/poesenau/Earnings_2005.jpg

Please note: The numbers on the left indicate the percentage of
workers. The commas represent decimal decimal points, since I used a
European program to create the graph.

Also, the data set I used does not relate to all 130 million workers
in the USA, but to the 91.8 million full-time, year-round workers with
earnings over 16 years of age. Nevertheless, it is absolutely clear
that you were right: As you will note, the income distribution is
indeed a (slightly deformed) bell-curve, so your assumption was
correct. And the peak of the curve belongs to the group of workers
earning $35,000 to $49,999 a year, as you anticipated.

Here is the underlying Census Bureau data table I used:
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/STTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_S2001&-ds_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_

Hope this is what you were looking for!
Best regards,
Scriptor

the graph provided is deceptive. The income distribution is not a bell
curve (normal). By using a nolinear scale on the x axis you distort
the shape and loose the information that about half the income is in
the very long tail that is compressed. For more information see graphs
at
http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/category/graph/
http://www.lcurve.org/