The median American household made $56,500 in 2015, a 5.2 percent boost over the year before after accounting for inflation, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Tuesday.
It is the first time that real median incomes have risen since 2007. The rich had already seen their earnings climb over the past couple of years.
But the median household saw incomes stagnate and lost ground to inflation throughout the recession and gradual recovery. Tuesday’s figures mark not just a return to growth, but the fastest one-year jump ever recorded in the median statistic.
Inflation-adjusted median household income now stands at the same level as it did before the crash, suggesting that working-class households have only now regained the buying power they lost. Median household income is still below its 1999 levels after the bounce-back.
The new data also reflect ongoing racial gaps in the American economy. The median black family earned $36,900 in inflation-adjusted terms last year — still below their pre-recession level, and nearly $20,000 below the overall median. Median earnings for a non-hispanic white family, meanwhile, leaped to $63,000 last year and are back at or above the pre-recession level.
Incomes at the top are now substantially above their pre-recession levels. The top 10 percent of earners brought in over $162,000 in 2015 — nearly three times the median family — and households in top 5 percent raked in at least $214,500.
The Census report underscores that many of our economic problems persist. Income gains are strongest at the top. pic.twitter.com/nhbWJd606V
— Binyamin Appelbaum (@BCAppelbaum) September 13, 2016
The U.S. poverty rate also fell significantly for the first time in years. 43.1 million people fit the official definition of poverty in 2015, a decline of 3.5 million Americans. The official poverty rate fell from 14.8 percent in 2014 to 13.4 percent last year, the largest one-year drop since 1968.
That is still one full percentage point above the pre-recession level. And many economists argue that the Census’ longstanding official measurement of poverty fails to capture the full reality of American hardship. The agency has developed a Supplemental Poverty Measure, which also declined last year. But 45.7 million Americans were still in poverty according to this more comprehensive, less venerable statistic.