Stagnation nation
Why we whine
Some clarification about just why the latest income/poverty/insurance report was so bad.
There was a significant rise in income among Americans over 65 — those who get much of their income from Social Security. In fact, they’ve been seeing income gains all through the Bush years.
But working families haven’t.
The picture above shows the median real income of households with the head of household aged 35-44. I’m using that as a proxy for working-age households in general, which the Census unfortunately doesn’t give in an easy-to-use form in its historical tables.
As you can see, income has its ups and downs, but in the past each peak was higher than the last one. That was even true, barely, in the energy-crisis-ridden 1970s. But in this decade, incomes first fell in the recession, then basically flattened out at a level well below its previous peak.
That’s really a miserable performance.
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