The American middle class has lost a quarter century
Matt Phillips
QZ.com
September 16, 2015
More than six years after the end of the Great Recession, America’s middle class is still waiting for its recovery.
Inflation-adjusted US median household incomes suffered another flat year in 2014. In newly-released data, the Census Bureau pegged real US median household incomes at $53,657, statistically flat from the previous year. (The median income is the exact midpoint of US income distribution—half of households in the nation have incomes that are higher, and half have incomes that are lower.)
Over the long term, the picture is pretty clear. Effectively, inflation-adjusted US median household incomes are still roughly where they were in 1989, when they hit $53,306. That means the American middle class hasn’t made durable progress for 25 years ago. And median household incomes are still more than 6.5% below the peak back in 2007, when they were $57,357.
It should come as little surprise that household incomes have stagnated in recent years. After all, nominal wage gains this time around have been downright puny by the standards of other recent economic recoveries.
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