WASHINGTON (AP) – Americans finally got a raise last year after eight years of stagnating incomes.
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Overall, median household income climbed more than 5% a year ago – the first annual increase since 2007, before the Great Recession.
Income in the median USA household peaked in 1999 at $57,909, the bureau says. In percentage terms, lower-income households had larger gains, but measures of the inequality of income distribution remained unchanged, the bureau said. Wisconsin saw median incomes rise by almost $3,000 to just more than $55,6000 in 2015.
The 5.2% jump in income is also the largest annual increase since the Census Bureau began releasing the data in 1967.
The growth in income also benefited almost all racial groups as well, with white, black and Hispanic households all seeing their incomes rise when inflation was taken into account, while there was no change in median incomes for Asian households.
The official poverty rate decreased to 13.5 percent for a year ago, a drop of 1.2 percentage points. The poverty rates for people aged 65 and older also decreased, falling 1.1 percentage points, from 10.0 percent to 8.8 percent. There were 43.1 Americans in poverty on the year, 3.5 million fewer than in 2014.
Full-time workers living in poverty, by contrast, fell from 3.0% in 2014 to 2.4% in 2015.
The poorest Americans saw the biggest income gain, the census report found. Private-sector coverage also increased as companies hired more workers and offered better benefits.
The median household income for Broward residents rose 4 percent to $53,926. While good news at last, it remains to be seen whether the economy can deliver additional years of household income growth.
But even after more than 30 years of sorting through similar data, he was surprised at Tuesday’s numbers.
Similarly, the poverty rate of those living outside of metropolitan areas was 16.7% in 2015, “not statistically different from 2014”, the report notes.
The share of Americans with health insurance continued to increase and only 9.1 per cent of the population had no health insurance a year ago, noted Census Bureau. When compared to 2014, almost 4 million people gained coverage during the year.
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The income gains for less affluent households probably have continued in 2016. SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) kept 4.6 million people out of poverty in 2015, including 2 million children, and the school lunch program reduced poverty by 0.4 percent.
