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Median Household Income
About This Indicator
What Is Median Household Income?
The income at which half of households earn more and half less: pre-tax cash, including earnings, Social Security, and unemployment benefits, but not tax credits, food assistance, or health coverage. Annual since 1967, inflation-adjusted, from the Census Bureau.
Why Does It Matter?
It is the usual test of whether growth reaches ordinary families: a billionaire moving to town lifts the average but not the median. It also moves when the population ages, since it counts retirees.
Can Politics Influence It?
Mostly through the job market, minimum wage, and labor law. Social Security and unemployment benefit changes show up; tax cuts, tax credits, and in-kind benefits such as Medicaid do not.
Key Idea
It measures households, not paychecks. It can rise with no one getting a raise when a second adult takes a job, as millions of married women did through the 1970s and 1980s. And it can stay flat while income per person climbs, as households have shrunk since 1967.
Scored: Faster Growth Ranks Better
Source: Census Bureau. Historical Income Table H-5, all races.
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