Real economics: Income

Paul Craig Roberts, Global Research - The US Census Bureau’s 2013 Income and Poverty Report concludes that in 2013 real median household income was 8 percent below the amount in 2007, the year prior to the 2008 recession and has declined to the level in 1994, two decades ago.

Even though real household income has not regained the pre-recession level and has declined to the level 20 years ago, the government and financial press claim that the economy has been in recovery since June 2009.

Real retail sales (corrected with a non-rigged measure of inflation) remain at the level of the bottom of the recession in 2009. Macy’s , J.C. Penny’s, and Sears store closings are further evidence of the lack of retail sales growth, as is the fact that two of the three dollar store chains are in trouble. Walmart’s sales are declining.






Blue = income growth of bottom 90%
Red - Income growth of top 10%
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WALL STREET JOURNAL   Income inequality remained historically high. The share of the nation’s income going to the bottom fifth of households remained at 3.2 percent, tied for the lowest level on record with data back to 1967. The ratio of the median income of the top fifth of households to that of the bottom fifth topped 12 to 1 for the first time on record, with data back to 1967.

538 - The government’s release of income and poverty data for 2013 brought renewed attention to the apparent stagnation of the American middle class — not just since the financial crisis hit six years ago this month, but for much of the decade that preceded the crash. The report showed that the economic recovery has yet to translate into higher incomes for the typical American family. After adjusting for inflation, U.S. median household income is still 8 percent lower than it was before the recession, 9 percent lower than at its peak in 1999, and essentially unchanged since the end of the Reagan administration. “As a country,” New York magazine’s Annie Lowrey wrote , “we peaked in the late 1990s.”


   

Census Bureau & Federal Reserve   Income gap between the top 5% and the bottom 20% is currently the largest on record

Conference of Mayors - Jobs gained during the economic recovery from the Great Recession pay an average 23% less than the jobs lost during the recession according to a new report by The U.S. Conference of Mayors. Under a similar analysis conducted by the Conference of Mayors during the 2001 - 2002 recession, the wage gap was only 12% compared to the current 23% -- meaning the wage gap has nearly doubled from one recession to the next.


   
    @Harpers - Factor by which the average compensation for CEOs of fast-food companies has increased since 2000: 7

Economic Collapse Blog: After adjusting for inflation, men who work full-time in America today make less money than men who worked full-time in America 40 years ago.

In 1989, the median American household made $51,681 in current dollars (the 2012 number, again, was $51,017). That means that 24 years ago, a middle class American family was making more than the a middle class family was making one year ago.