WASHINGTON (AP) — The income for the typical U.S. household barely rose last year and essentially matched its 2019 peak, the Census Bureau said Tuesday, as stubbornly high inflation offset wage gains.
The report also showed that the highest-earning households received healthy inflation-adjusted income increases, while middle- and lower-income households saw little gain.
Median household income, adjusted for inflation, in 2024 was $83,730, the Census Bureau said, a 1.3% increase from the previous year's level of $82,690. The median is the midpoint between the highest- and lowest-income households, and helps filter out the impact of very high and very low incomes that can skew averages.
The figures help illustrate why many Americans have been dissatisfied with the economy since the pandemic, even as unemployment has been historically low: Median household incomes are essentially unchanged from five years earlier, the report showed. Median household income was $83,260 in 2019, the report said, and the slightly higher figure for 2024 is within the margin of error and therefore reflects little change from five years earlier, Census officials said.
That is a sharp contrast from the preceding five-year period, from 2014 to 2019, when median household income rose nearly 21%.
“It’s not hard to see why middle-class Americans are frustrated,” said Heather Long, chief economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union. "The frozen job market, tariffs and Medicaid cuts are going to put even more of a squeeze in 2025 on middle and lower-income households.”
For richest 10% of households, incomes rose 4.2% to $251,000, while for the poorest one-tenth saw a 2.2% rise to $19,900. A household is defined by Census as a family unit or an individual living alone or living with people who aren't relatives.
Household income fell for three years after 2019, mostly because of the COVID pandemic and the resulting jump in prices, and rose in 2023 for the first time in four years.
The worst inflation spike in four decades in 2021 and 2022 soured most Americans on the economy, eroded sharp wage gains that occurred as employers desperately sought workers after the pandemic, and contributed to Vice President Kamala Harris' defeat in last year's election. Inflation, as measured by the consumer price index, fell in 2024 to an annual average of 2.9%, down from an average of 8% two years earlier.
The results also varied by demographic group, with Asian and Hispanic households reporting solid income gains. The median inflation-adjusted income for Asians jumped 5.1% to $121,700, while for Hispanics it rose 5.5% to $70,950. White incomes barely rose and were $92,530 last year, while Black incomes fell 3.3% to $56,020.
Earnings for women barely rose, while male earnings increased, widening the gender wage gap for the second straight year after two decades of narrowing. Women on average now earn 80.9% of what men earn, down from 82.7% in 2023.
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