Nerds everywhere rejoiced yesterday when the Census Bureau finally released its income numbers for 2019. I don’t want to keep you in suspense, so here are household income figures from 1980 through 2019:
As you might guess, 2019 was a very good year. Economic growth combined with sustained low unemployment forced a rise in incomes of 6.8 percent overall. That’s the biggest one-year increase since the Census Bureau began compiling records in 1980. Overall household income is now 11 percent higher than it was in 2007, before the start of the Great Recession.
The biggest gainers in 2019 were Asian households, up 10.6 percent, and Black households, up 7.9 percent. Latino households gained 7.1 percent and white households were up 5.9 percent.
Among individuals, men gained 4.6 percent and women gained 6.7 percent. Among full-time workers, women now make 82 percent as much as men:
The full report is here if you want to dig in further. The historical tables through 2019 are here.
