The Bureau of Labor Statistics released updated figures on household and individual income. The news is quite positive:
Real median household income in 2024 was a record $83,730, reversing a downward trend that began in 2020 with the pandemic. Real median individual income also reached a new high at $45,140 in 2024.[1] Both of these figures continue a general rising trend that has been going on since the 80s.[2] What’s interesting to note is that, contrary to the stories told by the Left and the MAGA Right, American incomes are not stagnating. Real median household income is up 38.6% since 1984, and real individual median income is up 57.1% since 1974.
In order for real income to be generally rising, the economy needs to be generally growing. Looking at the data, stagnation happens when we are in recessionary periods. It grows where we are generally growing. Some, like E.J. Antoni, argue we’ve been in a recession since 2022. The data do not support that contention.[3]
In the short run, there certainly are concerns about the US economy: tariffs, weak employment, stubbornly high inflation, and increasing economic isolationism. But, in the long run, the US economy still has legs. To defeat defeatism, we must look at the data and take heart in the optimistic signals it sends.
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[1] To head off any objections: “real” means “inflation-adjusted” and “median” is the point where half of households are above and half below that value, so outliers like the super wealthy and super poor will not influence the number. These results are not being driven by inflation or gains in just the super wealthy.
[2] Real median household income data go back to 1984 while individual income goes back to 1974. Given that household income generally tracks individual income, it’s probable that household income likely was rising earlier than 1984, too.
[3] There are other empirical and theoretical issues with the argument that the United States has been in a recession since 2022. See, for example, America in Recession Since 2022? A Critique of Antoni-St. Onge by UW-Madison economist Menzie Chinn.
READER COMMENTS
steve
Oct 2 2025 at 9:46am
Points out that Trump and the GOP inherited a strong economy. While the true libertarians will argue that our economy is too centralized and the govt is too involved in picking winners and losers, we now have an economy where much more policy is dictated by just one person, often seemingly on whim. One has to hope he chooses correctly, and that those who follow him always choose correctly. I am not optimistic about those who follow him wanting to surrender the authority he has, with little pushback, appropriated. Actually, I would expect those who follow to expand on what he has done. Congress is supine and SCOTUS are cheerleaders.
Steve
Mark Barbieri
Oct 2 2025 at 12:08pm
What I find interesting is that most of the young people I talk to think that things are harder now than at any time in modern history. I don’t know if young people have always felt that way or if this is a new thing.
Jon Murphy
Oct 2 2025 at 2:13pm
Probably a little of both. I think some pessimism is justified what with the 2007 recession and 2020 recession. But much of it is not.
Ghost
Oct 3 2025 at 12:21pm
These numbers will also surprise some of the older people I talk to, who say things along the lines that they themselves are OK, but they’re concerned for their children/grandchildren.
Some of this is blindness, induced by reflections off gold plate: in other words that the much-publicised rise of the super-wealthy must mean that prosperity has been sucked away from everyone else.
Dylan
Oct 4 2025 at 9:03am
Buy my income is down about 70% since 2022 and most of my friends and neighbors who are all highly educated and used to have really high paying jobs haven’t been able to find any work, some for well over a year, not even a barista job. I believe that meets the official definition of both a recession and a depression.
Jose Pablo
Oct 7 2025 at 8:10pm
One thing is the median income rising, and quite another is all incomes rising.
An increase in the median income is generally a sign of overall economic prosperity. Such prosperity almost always requires that some individual incomes decline, since shifts in the relative value of different skills are needed to optimize resource allocation and drive growth. Otherwise, blacksmiths would still be making a decent living from shaping horseshoes.
If the incomes of one group decline while the median income still rises, it necessarily means that the incomes of an even larger group have increased over the same period
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