Despite increase in 2015, US household income still lags behind pre-recession levels
Despite increase in 2015, US household income still lags behind pre-recession levels
By Kate Randall
14 September 2016
Household incomes for Americans rose in 2015, the US Census Bureau reported Tuesday. Median household income was $56,516 in 2015, an increase of 5.2 percent over the previous year.
While this was the largest one-year rise since at least 1967, median household income—the level with equal numbers of households above and below it—is still 1.6 percent below the previous peak of $57,423 in 2007, before the economy sank into recession. It also remains 2.4 percent lower than its peak in 1999, before the bursting of the dot-com bubble.
The census data also reveals that income inequality in America remained virtually unchanged from 2014, with the wealthy in the top fifth of the population taking in about half of all household income, while the bottom fifth earned only 3.4 percent.
The official poverty rate in 2015 was 13.5 percent, down 1.2 percentage points from 14.8 percent in 2014. The census used the abysmally low figure of $24,847 as the poverty threshold for a family with two adults and two children in 2015. The poverty rate fell by 3.5 million from 2014, meaning that 43.1 million Americans continued to live in poverty. The poverty rate has still not dipped below pre-recession levels.
The census report followed a US Department of Agriculture report last week showing that 12.7 percent of US households were food insecure in 2015, meaning they had difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources.
Predictably, President Obama praised the modest household income gains, posting on his White House blog, “Today’s report from the Census Bureau shows the remarkable progress that American families have made as the recovery continues to strengthen,” and pointing to the figures in a stump speech he gave for Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia Tuesday afternoon.
While Obama touted the household income gains as evidence that the economy is on the upswing, analysts question why seven years after the proclaimed “recovery” in 2009, household incomes have still not returned to pre-recession levels, while poverty and hunger remain extraordinarily high for the richest country in the world
Or, as Arloc Sherman of the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities told the New York Times, “The next question is why did it take such a long time for things to look good?”
The number of full-time, year-round workers increased by 2.4 million in 2015—1.4 million men and 1 million women. Between 2014 and 2015, the real median earnings of men and women who worked full time, year round in both years increased by 1.5 percent and 2.7 percent, respectively.
This is far lower than the reported 5.2 percent increase in median income for all households. This suggests that the largest source of these gains is increased working hours for part-time workers rather than any rise in hourly pay. As workers moved from unemployment or part-time work to full-time jobs, many of these jobs are likely in the low-wage retail and other sectors.
And while men’s earnings from work in 2015 rose by 1.5 percent from 2014, to $51,212, they still lag behind men’s earnings from the 1970s when calculated in 2015 dollars. Women’s earnings rose by about 25 percent, to $40,742, during this same period.
Real median incomes in 2015—$72,165 for family households and $33,805 for nonfamily households—increased 5.3 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively, from their 2014 medians.
While all family households saw median income increases in 2015, married couple households had the highest median income, at $84,626. This was followed by households maintained by men with no woman present, $55,861 median, and those maintained by women with no man present, $37,797 median.
Hispanic households saw the greatest rise in median income (6.1 percent), followed by white households (5.6 percent), black households (4.1 percent), and Asian households (3.7 percent).
Although all regions of the country saw median household income increases, the South’s was the smallest, rising by 2.9 percent. Rural areas were the only demographic to see a decrease in median household income, dropping by 2 percent, compared to metropolitan areas.
The census’s comparison of household incomes distributed across all quintiles of the population showed virtually no change from 2014 to 2015, indicating that extreme income inequality persists despite the modest increases in household median income.
While the bottom and second lowest fifths of households saw modest increases in income, 1.9 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively, the highest fifth still takes 49.8 percent of all income. The top 5 percent takes in 21.8 percent, statistically equal to 2014.
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS:
You were wondering how many jobs went to illegals and how well Obama’s crony
banksters have done???
The sputtering economic recovering under President Obama, the last
to follow a major recession, has fallen way short of the average recovery and
ranks as the worst since the 1930s Great Depression, according to a new report.
Had the recovery under Obama been the average of the 11 since the
Depression, according to the report, family incomes would be $17,000 higher,
six million fewer Americans would be in poverty, and there would be six million
more jobs.
"The decline in homeownership
is one sign of the deep social crisis in the United States. As rents
and housing costs have soared, spurred on by financial speculation that
has enriched the ruling elites, incomes and jobs for most Americans
have shriveled."
"These
figures present a scathing indictment of the social order that prevails in
America, the world’s wealthiest country, whose government proclaims itself to
be the globe’s leading democracy. They are just one manifestation of the human
toll taken by the vast and all-pervasive inequality and mass poverty
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS
TO SERVE THE SUPER RICH: The slow and painful death of America that dominates
American society."
THE OBAMA SOLUTION TO END
WHITE CHRISTIAN AMERICA:
DRUG ADDICTION!!!
MEXICO: AMERICA’S DRUG
DEALER!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2016/08/obama-clintonomics-their-crony.html
“This study follows reports released over the past several months
documenting rising mortality rates among US workers due to drug addiction and
suicide, high rates of infant mortality, an overall leveling off of life
expectancy, and a growing gap between the life expectancy of the bottom rung of
income earners compared to those at the top.”
THE MEXICAN
DRUS CARTELS HAVE GREATLY BENEFITED FROM BARACK OBAMA’S SABOTAGE OF HOMELAND
SECURITY.
THE CLINTON “JOBS” PLAN ENDORSED BY NARCOMEX – IT’S CALLED
AMNESTY!
Clinton, in the guise of a “jobs” and “infrastructure” program,
promoted yet another scheme to hand out tax cuts and other incentives for
companies to hire workers at poverty-level wages, with the trade unions brought
in to keep the workers in line in return for a cut in the spoils.
THE GLOBAL
REACH OF HILLARY AND BILLARY AND THEIR BRIBES SUCKING
America’s Looming Economic Armageddon
– Can the Rich Get Even Richer During the Meltdown? Haven’t they looted us into
bankruptcy?
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS
FOR THE RICH: On behalf of bankster-owned Barack Obama, Yellen vows to the rich
and crony banksters that they will be protected and subsidized with no strings
bailouts during the next looming economic meltdown around the corner from
elections.
“In fact, these policies have
already produced financial and asset bubbles that are unsustainable, and there
are increasing signs of financial instability and crisis. There are growing
warnings that the spread of negative interest rates is leading to a new
financial meltdown even worse than the disaster that struck eight years ago.”
"The same period has seen a massive growth of social
inequality, with income and wealth concentrated at the very top of American
society to an extent not seen since the 1920s."
LA RAZA SUPREMACIST
OBOMB FLOODS AMERICA WITH ILLEGALS!
THE OBAMA-CLINTON
AMNESTY KEEPS WAGES DEPRESSED, DESTROYS THE
AMERICAN MIDDLE
CLASS AND BUILDS THE DEMOCRAT PARTY'S LA RAZA
PARTY BASE OF
MEXICAN FLAG WAVERS.
OBAMA DOCTRINE: KEEP AMERICA’S BORDERS OPEN AND
UNDEFENDED AND CATCH AND RELEASE MEXICO’S INVADING CRIMINAL CLASS…. So they go
vote democrat!
"More than
728,000 illegal immigrants have been shielded from being deported
and
granted work
permits through President Barack Obama’s 2012 executive amnesty
program, according to the Migration Policy Institute."
AMERICA'S ROAD TO REVOLUTION
…..will pass right through Hillary
Clinton’s Mansion door!
“Our entire crony
capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy
approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This is the way a great
country is raided by its elite.” ---- Karen McQuillan THE AMERICAN THINKER.com
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