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2015: largest one year increase in median income in US history
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-recovery-finally-reached-most-americans-in-2015/The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that the median U.S. household made $56,516 in 2015, up 5.2 percent from 2014 after adjusting for inflation. That’s the first increase since 2007, and the largest one-year increase on record. The number of Americans living in poverty fell by 3.5 million, and the poverty rate fell 1.2 percentage points, to 13.5 percent, the biggest drop since 1968.
The income gains were remarkably widespread. Incomes rose for people in every age group, of every race and in every part of the country. And in a reversal of recent trends, incomes rose fastest for the lowest earners. By most measures, in fact, the U.S. became slightly more equal in 2015.
One year of strong gains wasn’t enough to erase the scars of the recession, though, or the years of weak income growth that preceded it. Incomes remain lower, and poverty higher, than they were when the recession began in late 2007. Worse, incomes have been stagnant, at best, since 2000, even accounting for trends such as the aging of the U.S. population.
Still, Tuesday’s report is the best evidence yet that years of steady job growth and falling unemployment are at last translating into income gains for American households. When the Census Bureau released its 2014 income data a year ago, I wrote that “more jobs haven’t meant less poverty.” That’s no longer true. Nearly 12 million more Americans worked full-time and year-round in 2015 than in 2009, and their earnings have nearly returned to pre-recession levels; in fact, women with full-time jobs earned slightly more in 2015 than they did in 2007. And with job growth holding steady in 2016, it is likely that income gains have continued as well.
The income gains were remarkably widespread. Incomes rose for people in every age group, of every race and in every part of the country. And in a reversal of recent trends, incomes rose fastest for the lowest earners. By most measures, in fact, the U.S. became slightly more equal in 2015.
One year of strong gains wasn’t enough to erase the scars of the recession, though, or the years of weak income growth that preceded it. Incomes remain lower, and poverty higher, than they were when the recession began in late 2007. Worse, incomes have been stagnant, at best, since 2000, even accounting for trends such as the aging of the U.S. population.
Still, Tuesday’s report is the best evidence yet that years of steady job growth and falling unemployment are at last translating into income gains for American households. When the Census Bureau released its 2014 income data a year ago, I wrote that “more jobs haven’t meant less poverty.” That’s no longer true. Nearly 12 million more Americans worked full-time and year-round in 2015 than in 2009, and their earnings have nearly returned to pre-recession levels; in fact, women with full-time jobs earned slightly more in 2015 than they did in 2007. And with job growth holding steady in 2016, it is likely that income gains have continued as well.