U.S. Household Income Grew 5.2% in 2015, Breaking Pattern of Stagnation

WASHINGTON — Household incomes for American families rose strongly in 2015, breaking a yearslong pattern of income stagnation. The median household’s income in 2015 was $56,516, an increase of 5.2 percent over the previous year — the largest one-year rise since at least 1967, the Census Bureau reported on Tuesday.

The income gains represent an important turning point in the recovery from the 2008 recession, showing that recent economic gains are being distributed more broadly.

“It has been a long slog from the depths of the Great Recession, but things are finally starting to improve for many American households,” said Chris G. Christopher Jr., director of consumer economics at IHS Global Insight.

The economic recovery, however, remains incomplete. The median is still 1.6 percent lower than in 2007, before the recession. It also remains 2.4 percent lower than the peak reached during the boom of the late 1990s. The number of people living in poverty also remains elevated, although it shrank last year by 3.5 million, or roughly 8 percent.

Still, most economists saw the report as remarkably positive. In an exuberant tweet, Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, called it “unambiguously the best” such census data “ever.” Household incomes in 2015 were higher than when President Obama entered office, and it is likely that the gains are continuing during his final year in office.


For Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, the new data weakens a crucial talking point. He has repeatedly cited the stagnation of household income as evidence of a broader malaise.

The Census Bureau also reported that the share of Americans with health insurance continues to rise. It said that only 9.1 percent of Americans had no insurance last year.

Several states, including Pennsylvania, Indiana and Alaska, expanded their Medicaid programs last year, taking advantage of increased federal funding under the Affordable Care Act. Private sector coverage also increased as companies hired more workers and offered better benefits.

The data released on Tuesday was widely anticipated because evidence from other sources suggested it was likely to show a strong increase in household incomes last year. The median income means that half of households made more than that amount, while half made less.

The new report shows that those gains were broad-based. Incomes increased for every age group, with the strongest gains for households with adults in prime working years.

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