The incomes of typical Americans rose in 2015 by 5.2 percent, the first significant boost to middle-class pay since the end of the Great Recession, the Census Bureau reported on Tuesday morning.
Advertisement
New numbers in the American Community Survey include 2015 demographic information across 40 topics, including employment, health insurance, number of people in a home and more. She said “the lack of affordable housing and public transportation, coupled with the high cost of living, creates many barriers” for those in poverty. This means that in 2015, half of all US -based households made more than $56,516 and half made less than that figure.
Real median household income – essentially the middle of middle-income earners – grew by an inflation-adjusted 5.2% from $53,718 in 2014 to $56,516 in 2015, the first annual increase since 2007. In 17 of the states reporting higher than average household incomes, college attainment rates also exceed the national attainment rate of 30.1%.
Although more details of household incomes in Minnesota will be released on Thursday, one Treasury document does confirm that the state’s poverty level is at 9.1 percent, the 2nd lowest in the country – after New Hampshire.
There are signs of growing income inequality in La Crosse County with a rise in both income and poverty past year.
During the same time period, regions in metro areas but outside principal cities – that is, suburban households – had the highest median income of $64,144.
The data was 2.4 per cent lower than the peak level of the median household income of $57,909 in 1999, the bureau said. Nationwide the poverty rate decreased 1.2 percentage points and health insurance coverage rose in all 50 states.
The poverty rate fell 1.2 percentage points to 13.5 per cent, with 43.1 million Americans living in poverty, 3.5 million fewer than in 2014.
Thus far, Republican Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and his opposition to trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) appeals to Americans who feel economically insecure.
“We didn’t come out of this recession, which ended nationally in June of 2009, for two and a half more years”, said University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith. The unemployment rate had declined to 4.9 percent as of last month.
Advertisement
Digging deeper, Adler’s discovered that the total for all women’s total earnings was an increase of 6.4 percent, which is more than twice the per-person 2.7 percent gain for people working full-time.
