Even though this is the first annual increase in median family income since 2007, inflation adjusted wages a year ago were still 1.6% lower than they were in 2007.
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Median household income rose to $56,500 in 2015 last year, up 5.2%, or $2,800, from 2014, while the poverty rate fell to 13.5% from 14.8% the year earlier, the largest single-year percentage drop since 1968.
Iowa’s median household income was $53,816 in 2014, the most recent year for which data was available. While good news at last, it remains to be seen whether the economy can deliver additional years of household income growth. Just over 15 percent of the state’s residents were in poverty in 2015, a decline of just over a percentage from the year, and slightly higher than the national rate.
In the seven-county Pittsburgh metropolitan area, Armstrong and Washington counties joined Allegheny in reducing their poverty rates, while Beaver, Butler, Fayette and Westmoreland counties experienced more poverty than the year before, according to the American Community Survey.
As for poverty, the rate between 2014 and 2015 declined in 23 states. Overall, the poverty rate fell from 14.8 percent of the U.S. population to 13.5 percent, with gains for kids, the elderly, and all types of American families.
The U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday released its annual report on income, poverty and health insurance. Back in 2014, only median Hispanic families saw an increase in income, while Asians, blacks, and whites saw their income fall or stay flat.
Also notably, the number of households living in poverty dropped by 1.2 percentage points from 2014 to 2015 to 3.5 million.
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. In fact, the reduction in poverty can be attributed, in part, to a 5.2 percent increase in median household income – the first annual increase in median household income since 2007.
But these numbers don’t tell us everything about poverty in America.
On Tuesday the U.S. Census Bureau released a report full of what, for many Americans, looks like good news.
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.
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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.
