American families are stuck in a lost quarter century
Mark it down as another bleak milestone for the American middle class.
The US Census Bureau just published its annual update on income and poverty in the US. The data amount to one of the best report cards on the economic health of the US middle class.
At first blush, the news on incomes doesn’t look so horrible. Inflation-adjusted US median household incomes was essentially flat 2013—the Census Bureau said the rise to $51,939, wasn’t a statistically significant increase from 2012’s $51,758. (The median income is exact midpoint of the US income distribution. In other words, half the US households have incomes that are higher, and half have incomes that are lower.)
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But the bigger picture is not great. Effectively, inflation-adjusted US median household incomes are still about 1% below where they were in 1989. That’s nearly 25 years ago. And median household incomes are still 9% below the all-time peak back in 1999, when they were $56,895. (They are also 8% below their recent high water mark in 2007, when they hit $56,436.)
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http://qz.com/265980/american-families-are-stuck-in-a-lost-quarter-century/
