U.S. Median Household Income Data29 Aug 07
Posted by M. Wright | Filed in: Data
What you will find if you look at the numbers from an apolitical viewpoint is that median income has taken a hit over the past decade. Okay, so there are more people working as burger flippers and burger flippers are making more money. Big freaking deal!
Hmm, let’s see about that:
Farmer’s analysis doesn’t seem to fit the data.
UPDATE: Thanks to karrde in the comments, I’ve corrected the graph’s key.
UPDATE II: Added stretchy purple line.
August 30th, 2007 at 1:43 am
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August 30th, 2007 at 5:04 am
Say, when the key reads “real dollars”, does it mean “non-inflation-adjusted”? The underlying Census data uses the phrase “current dollars” for that category.
The rise in median income from ‘95 to ‘05 makes the phrase “taken a hit” seem to mean “improved by 6.8%”.
With that in mind, I’d really love for my income to take a similar hit.
August 30th, 2007 at 5:24 am
The key — yeah, I’m still learning the correct terminology. But your assumption is correct.
Farmer does have a point that if an army of burger flippers invaded U.S. households, the median household income would rise. So our next task is to look at median incomes. So if that burger-flipping army does exist, it should be driving the median incomes way down, right?
August 30th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Nice purple line.
Well, if the number of people earning $14,000 per year increased dramatically ($7/hr, 40 hrs/wk and 50 wks/year… 7*40*50=14000…unless burger-flippers don’t earn $7/hr…), then the median income would decrease. Unless the median was already below $14,000.
Median, by the way, is the value found in the middle when all the incomes are listed in increasing order. (Or decreasing order…take your pick.)
Actually, I suspect that that the given median is a median of a statistical sample. But the Dept. of Labor has been doing statistics like this for half a century, and has a good handle on producing a solid representative sample.
August 30th, 2007 at 10:46 am
So what we’re seeing here, to me, is that adjusted for inflation, incomes haven’t changed all that much.
Maybe its time to give Ron Paul some credit and get rid of the Fed?
August 30th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
I’d be very interested to see that graph alongside two others that chart the median incomes of both the bottom and top 10% wage of earners over the same time period.
August 30th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
unless burger-flippers don’t earn $7/hr
As someone who has slaved and bossed in the fast food world, I can say that before the most recent min-wage hike, most burger flippers are making more than $7/hour. Many, it’s closer to $8; and in big cities it’s nearer $9 or more. To start. Bump all those numbers up by whatever the recent hike was for today.
Stay with it a coupla years and you’re making $1.50 or $2 above that.