Support the fact-based journalism you rely on with a donation to Marketplace today. Give Now!

The amount of money people took home last year was the same as the year before

Andy Uhler Sep 10, 2019
HTML EMBED:
COPY
Bay Ismoyo/AFP/Getty Images)

The amount of money people took home last year was the same as the year before

Andy Uhler Sep 10, 2019
Bay Ismoyo/AFP/Getty Images)
HTML EMBED:
COPY

New data from the U.S. Census Bureau on how much Americans are taking home has some economists, like Bruce Sacerdote at Dartmouth College, scratching their heads.

“It’s a puzzle,” he said. “The economy has been in expansion for a long time, there’s a lot of business optimism out there, there’s reasonable but not stellar GDP growth. So you should, of course, expect to see people taking more home.”

Some Americans are taking more money home, but those are generally people in the higher tax brackets. 

The median U.S. household income of $63,179 in 2018 was $533 higher than in 2017, which economists say is statistically insignificant.

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.