Inflation Erodes Wage Gains, Median U.S. Household Income Stalls At $83,730 In 2024, Census Bureau Finds

Median household income in the U.S. stalled last year as inflation offset wage gains, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, according to The Wall Street Journal. Adjusted for rising prices, median household income was $83,730 in 2024, unchanged from 2023 and roughly the same as in 2019. High-income households saw a 4.2% gain, while middle- and low-income households recorded no meaningful change. Median income for Black households fell 3.3% to $56,020, while Hispanic and Asian households rose 5.5% and 5.1%, respectively. Women lost ground to men for the second year in a row, with full-time female earnings falling to 81% of men’s pay. The federal government’s official poverty measure, which only accounts for pretax income, showed that 10.6% of Americans were in poverty last year. That figure fell 0.4 percentage points from the prior year, with the threshold for a family of four set at $32,130.