Exploring the influence and mechanism of family endowment on farmers’ income is of great significance for promoting non-agricultural employment and increasing farmers’ income in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River Basin. Based on a microscopic survey data of 1,770 farmers in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River Basin, and applying the OLS and quantile regression models, this paper explored the impacts of family endowment on farmers’ income and farmers at different income levels and the mediating effect between endowment and household income. Results show: 1) Family endowment has a significant impact on household income, of which the impact of family economic capital is the most significant, followed by family natural capital, and finally family human capital and family social capital; 2) Household endowments have different effects on farming households at different income levels and have a significant positive effect on both middle and high income levels; and 3) Non-agricultural employment has an intermediary effect between family human capital and household income and between family economic capital and income, accounting for 19.0% and 6.4% respectively. Therefore, to promote income generation for farmers, this paper suggests: fully taking into account the level of farmers’ household endowment , vigorously cultivating the new types of professional farmers who “love agriculture, know technology and are good at business management”, and continually enriching and broadening farmers’ access to information. In addition, this paper also suggests to pay attention to the construction of pension services for low-income level farm households, to increase policy support and financial support, and vigorously pursue the development of regional characteristic industries and actively encourage non-farming entrepreneurship of farm households to realize the employment of the labor force in the vicinity.