U.S. Household Income Grew 5.2% in 2015, Breaking Pattern of Stagnation

[swag]

Source: New York Times

By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

WASHINGTON — For American families, household incomes rose strongly in 2015, breaking a yearslong pattern of income stagnation. The median household’s income in 2015 was $56,500, an increase of 5.2 percent over the previous year, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday.

The income gains are an important turning point in the recovery from the 2008 recession, the deepest since the Great Depression. They show that recent economic gains are being distributed more broadly.

But the recovery remains incomplete. The median household income is still 1.6 percent lower than in 2007, before the recession. It also remains 2.4 percent lower than the all-time peak reached during the economic boom of the late 1990s.

The Census Bureau also reported that the number of households living in poverty shrank by 3.5 million in 2015, reducing the poverty rate by 1.2 percentage points.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/14/business/economy/us-census-household-income-poverty-wealth-2015.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0

[Johnny2X2X]

1. Great News

This economy is working for the middle class, it has been trending this way for years, have to keep this going. Other great numbers are that poverty is down and the insured is at its highest point ever.

[LonePirate]

2. Thanks, Obama!

[swag]

3. Justin Wolfers breaks out the best news from the Census report in this Tweetstorm

https://twitter.com/JustinWolfers/status/775706024279838720

[swag]

4. US Poverty Rate falls to Post-recession low

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-13/u-s-poverty-rate-falls-to-post-recession-low-as-incomes-gain

The U.S. poverty rate fell last year to the lowest level since the last recession as incomes recovered most of their losses, according to a government report Tuesday.

Fresh yearly data from the U.S. Census Bureau showed median, inflation-adjusted household income rose 5.2 percent to $56,516 in 2015, the highest level since $57,423 in 2007, when the recession began. With 43.1 million Americans in poverty, leaving the poverty rate in 2015 at 13.5 percent, down 1.2 percentage points from 2014 and the lowest since 13.2 percent in 2008.

The number of people without health insurance coverage for the whole year was 29 million, or 9.1 percent, down 1.3 percentage points from 2014, according to the bureau.

[whatthehey]

5. Hints for doomers

1) No, pointing out anecdotes of people living in poverty does not refute improving data.

2) Hell even pointing out (unnecessarily, since the snippet already does so) that the actual data are not yet quite back to historical highs does not refute improving data.

3) Improvement, even rapid and dramatic improvement, is not a synonym for perfection, and nobody I can recall either here or in the media has ever claimed otherwise. Rising median income, jobs gains, lower poverty rates etc just means things are getting better. Attacking the doomer-darling strawman non-claim that all is wonderful may give you the little black cloud frisson that you live for, but is neither germane nor a valid rebuttal.

[swag]

7. So well put!

[SunSeeker]

6. That's certainly been the case in my household, thanks to my union!

[swag]

8. Really interesting

So many disaffected workers who want America to be "as it once was" probably don't realize that that America really depended upon unions for good manufacturing jobs.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

9. I might as well pile on.

884 comments!

U.S. Household Incomes Surged 5.2% in 2015, First Gain Since 2007

Census Bureau reports the largest annual gain since it began releasing such data in 1967

By Nick Timiraos and Janet Adamy

[email protected]
https://twitter.com/NickTimiraos

[email protected]
https://twitter.com/janetadamy

Updated Sept. 13, 2016 1:17 p.m. ET

884 COMMENTS

Incomes in the U.S. surged in 2015, delivering the first gain for the typical family in eight years.

The median household income—the level at which half are above and half are below—rose 5.2% from a year earlier, after adjusting for inflation, or $2,800, to $56,500, the Census Bureau said Tuesday.

The boost leaves household incomes around 1.6% below the 2007 level, before the last recession began, and around 2.4% below the all-time high reached in 1999.

The latest figures show how several years of robust growth in employment are finally helping a broad swath of the nation regain ground lost after several years of either flat incomes or sustained declines, particularly for lower-income households. ... Last year’s 5.2% annual gain in median incomes is the largest jump since the Census Bureau began releasing such data in 1967.

[vdogg]

10. Hence the 58% approval rating.