Median household income in the United States of America slowed its descent in 2012, according to data released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau.
They typical American family brought in $51,017 last year after adjusting for inflation – which is down $83 (or 0.2 percent) from 2011. That’s bad news, obviously, but the decline was much less severe than in the previous two years – when income levels dropped by 1.5 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively.
In South Carolina, median household income in 2011 was $42,367 – down $944 (2.2 percent) from an inflation adjusted $43,311. The previous year income levels slipped by 3 percent in South Carolina. The year before that they fell 3.7 percent.
Updated 2012 data for the Palmetto State is expected to be released later this week.
Household income in the United States peaked in 1999 at $56,080 – and climbed close to that level again in 2007 at $55,627. Then the bottom fell out.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the ongoing suppression of income levels is due to … wait for it … flat wages. Because (surprise, surprise) if paychecks fall … so do incomes. Oh … and there’s very little by way of good news on the horizon given the ongoing sluggishness of the economy.
“U.S. businesses still have little incentive to boost wages given that over 11 million Americans are looking for work,” the paper reported. “Much of the nation’s recent job growth has been in lower-paying industries.”
Hope and change, everybody … hope and change.
15 comments
Yep, and when Obutthead care takes over real wages will decline by another 10% below that which was already lost (and not noted in this article) from increased premiums.
‘It’s a FRACKING GREAT DAY IN SOUTH CAROLINA!’.
Crap.
You have no idea why wages have been flat for years, do you, Sic?
Tell us.
You should show the charts. The average American saw his income and share of the “American Pie”, go up dramatically from the time of FDR to the time of Ronald Reagan. The upward movement stopped during the Reagan Administration and except for a brief reprieve under Clinton, the average American has been losing ground ever since. That loss accelerated dramatically under Bush II. In the meantime the Top 1% of Americans have seen their income and share of the pie increase dramatically, and the disparity in wealth between the wealthiest Americans and the average American is has surpassed the era of the robber barons.
So long as the Government concentrated its efforts on improving the lot of the average American, the nation prospered. Everyone, rich, poor and middle class benefited. When the Government stopped concentrating their efforts on improving the lot of middle class America and started concentrating all their efforts on trickle down economics, the lot of the middle class began to nosedive, and with it the health of the nation.
That dive continues to this date, and will continue until the residents of K Street and C Street are purged from Government; and we get big money out of politics.
Here is are two excellent graphics of what has happened to America in the last 40 years.
http://www.businessinsider.com/plutocracy-reborn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:If-us-land-mass-were-distributed-like-us-wealth.png
Take your reasoned debate somewhere else. This site is for dunderheaded Fox news acolytes.
I see HufPo is out in force again.
Well guess what, Frank neither of these were from the Huffington Post. As with all Republicans these days, just cover your eyes and say its not true, because it does not fit your narrative..
Don’t you cuss me woman. I ain’t no freaking libtard Repuklicrat.
I never said you were a Republican. I said you were acting the same as the Republicans. i.e. ignoring facts that don’t fit a narrative.
NO NO NO. That is you my dear. Incapable of seeing anything except that which suits your bible.
Frank, I value all facts but not all opinions.
Dropin’ knowledge bombs, yo.
Time to raise taxes to increase prosperity.
GOP is doing what it can to lower those median wages for middle class and low income wage earners. That’s what’s best for businesses.
How Republicans think.
“Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) complained in a closed-door GOP meeting that many congressional aides “may be 33 years old now and not making a lot of money. But in a few years they can just go to K Street and make 500,000 a year. Meanwhile I’m stuck here making $172,000 a year.”