MEDIAN INCOME REACHES PRE-RECESSION LEVELS: Eight years after the Great Recession ended, median U.S. household income in 2017 finally returned to its pre-recession level ($61,400), marking the third consecutive uptick in American incomes, according to data released Wednesday by the Census Bureau . But the median's 1.8 percent growth during 2017--President Donald Trump's first year in office--was notably slower than its growth during each of the last two years of Barack Obama's presidency (5.2 percent in 2015 and 3.2 percent in 2016; all figures are adjusted for inflation). Also, the 2017 median remained a bit below its historic peak in 1999 ($62,000 in current dollars).
"Wage growth remained slow," writes POLITICO's Timothy Noah, "and by some measures actually declined in 2017, even as household income rose. Median earnings for year-round, full-time work fell 1.1 percent, after inflation, the Census reported. The household income gain appeared to reflect an increase in the number of hours worked." More from Noah here and more from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute here.
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