Daily Kos, "Chart of the Day: Median income"

Chart of the Day: Median income

by Meteor Blades at the Daily Kos

https://www.dailykos.com/

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Financial adviser Doug Short has published his take on Sentier Research's monthly look at median household income for February. The condensed version: Nearly five years after the Great Recession officially ended, median income is up, but it's still not up to where it was at its peak in January 2008, just after the recession began. Here's one way to look at the numbers:

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As can be seen, the trend has been upward since late 2010, 16 months after the National Bureau of Economic Research says the Great Recession ended. In fact, as Short notes, the "latest monthly gain was the second largest of the 170 data points in this series since the turn of the century."

But there is a big difference between nominal dollars (the red line) and real dollars (the blue line), that is, inflation-adjusted dollars. We all know from personal experience that a 2001 dollar is not worth the same as a 2014 dollar. There's considerable dispute over exactly how inflation should be calculated, but even using the Consumer Price Index, which some critics say underestimates the true inflationary increase, the damage can be seen. Median annual inflation-adjusted income is 6.8 percent lower—about $3,892—than it was in January 2008. Not chicken feed unless you're a one-percenter.

We know why. Fewer people are working. On average, those who are working, even if they are employed at quite similar jobs as they were before the recession clobbered them, are getting paid less. (Their benefits are lower, too, but that's a chart for another day.)



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