Technology is a lot cheaper (and of course more abundant); but as far as most other expenses, we haven't budged in 40 years.

Except of course, those at the top.

From the article:

Crossing the $61,000 mark signals the American middle-class may have finally earned more than it did in 1999, although the Census Bureau cautions that median income last year was not statistically different from 1999 or 2007. A change in methodology in 2013 makes precise comparisons difficult. All the income figures have been adjusted for inflation and are reported in 2017 dollars.

Obviously someone making $61,000 in '78 was living very comfortably; today, as you know, a family of 3 (the average) can barely make it on that.

And yes, officially, real household incomes have stalled since '99 - but that's using the official CPI.

During the Bush years (after 2004), CPI was regularly and, sometimes, brazenly understated. Remember the almost invariable "3.3%" inflation - while gas, food, rent, health insurance, and education were going through the roof?

Pure fiction - like almost everything in the Dubya regime.

Taking those distortions into account, growth in real incomes is actually 10% lower at least.

A middle class household in 1978 was making about $15,000, which translates to about $60,000 in modern dollars.

Last edited Wed Sep 12, 2018, 03:27 PM - Edit history (1)

I added links to it and the health coverage report.

Here's one: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/2018/demo/p60-263/figure1.pdf

Best wishes.

ETA: someone turned the .pdf chart into a .png chart. Here it is.

Hat tip, Pacific Standard: MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME ROSE AGAIN IN 2017

Economists consider the difference between $60,000 and $61,000 to be within the margin of error.

One's mileage may vary, of course

As economists always say: A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.

Income is higher than it's ever been after you adjust for inflation. The median US household is able to buy more stuff now than at any point in the past.

But, again, that's using official data - which during Bush's second term was being manhandled worse than Dirty Rice at the Mayflower Hotel.

Remember that? It was always "3.3%"

I mean, if the Midland Idiot meant it as a nod to his Masonic brethren, I'm sure they didn't appreciate it.

People actually study this and know what they're doing. The way inflation is calculated has a lot of effort and intelligence behind it and isn't modified for political reasons.

In the morning, they ride the Green Line to work. Whatever their political inclinations are outside work, they put those aside and deal with the numbers on a nonpolitical basis. At the end of the day, they get back on the Green Line and go home.

They don't have a dog in this fight, so to speak. They don't consider some numbers as "good" and other numbers as "bad." They're just numbers.

Finally, I am not being disparaging when I refer to them as bureaucrats.

Take budget deficits.

Everyone and their brother knew that Dubya's invasions would cost upwards of $100 billion a year (far from the quick, in-out he promised his flag-waving zombies in '03).

With Bush facing a tough re-election, no Republican wanted record deficits to hit headlines - thereby confirming eveything Gore had warned about in terms of deficits in 2000.

Rove's solution: put the wars off the books.

Doing so made every deficit figure from 2004 to 2008 around $175 billion less than it really was. And guess what?

The doctored figures still stand to. this. day.

Knowing that, well - touching up inflation data must have been a cinch.

That's the point. Congress decides what is emergency spending and isn't. A professional statistician working in a basement on Independence Avenue calculates what the CPI is.

Well.

to really screw the middle class on home and state mortgages..................if your mortgage and your property tax is over $10,000 and lets say you pay $15,000, oh well, you get hit with the earned income tax and gotta pay for the $5,000, and those tax cuts......................so the haves have more than the have not's.......................austerity, is not good in three shell Paul "ayn rand Ryan, games.................CEO's are still making over 322% in income when compared to wages against the $61,000 figure...................

There's no textbook reason 2016 should have been a change election, and no textbook reason that a sitting President should be this unpopular with this economy.

I believe I heard they are recalculating what income is derived from to include benefits and pension whereas that has never been used before.

Eight years ago I made less but could save (significantly) more, because my housing costs were under control. Then, the rent went up, house got sold by the landlord, had to move, found a way more expensive place at so-called market rate, and the rent goes up every effing year (and I can't afford to buy).

A pretty significant one

Last edited Wed Sep 12, 2018, 07:12 PM - Edit history (2)

The stupid article itself

"The 5 best US states for the middle class" https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/29/the-5-best-us-states-to-live-in-on-a-middle-class-income.html

doesn't say anything about being adjusted for inflation (shame shame on them, I hate that!!!!). I searched for "inflation" and "real". But the article they linked to does:

From that article:

Incomes have fallen slightly from 1999, which was an historic high point. They've risen from 1978 and 2008.

adjusted for inflation, as I've seen many times here on DU.

When numbers are reported in the mainstream media or magazine articles, one can never assume which it is, depending on what numbers are being reported, in my experience. YMMV.

Edited to add: One example is BLS's Personal Income - the month over month figure, is the raw (not-inflation-adjusted number). Similarly when the monthly Payroll Jobs Report comes out, the reported increase in average hourly earnings is not inflation-adjusted. That's true even when comparing with the same month last year. Mainly because the monthly CPI report doesn't come out until later in the month. (Reporting and commentary on it MIGHT mention this and compare it to the latest available inflation number, however).

When the CPI does come out, the BLS then produces an inflation-adjusted version of the average hourly earnings, but it is barely noted in the media, certainly not with the prominence that the (not-inflation-adjusted) average hourly earnings gets when the payroll jobs report comes out.

I believe today's news from the Census Bureau is that inflation-adjusted (as well as nominal) median household income is at a new high, although ...

From OP:

There's so many ways to identify someone as "Middle Class" - even if it's just by a particular area of measurement - by economists or sociologists, by the census, or historians...

For the sake of income - there's at least two official ways in the US that it can determined by income; one can measure "Middle Class" as the third quintile of taxpayers, or those whose income ranges from the median to 2/3 of the total estimated income in the U.S.
Still other groups identify Middle Class as people who are either professional or skilled labor (i.e. certified labor), or who make above the median income via investments or rents - or even separate out individuals from households in the situation where there are two wage earners. One rater for insurance identified me as "Middle Class" while my disabled spouse on SSDI was identified as "Dependent Poor", though we were in the same household.

While all of the three overlap, they're still more like a Venn diagram. Depending on who's doing the measuring, those people and/or households at the lower third of the income of any one of just those three groups probably won't be identified as "Middle Class" in any of the others.

Haele

Or is that "1970s," with no apostrophe?

Analysis: "Not doing better than their fathers."

Men’s earnings have fallen since 1970?s, Census says.

Link to tweet

Hat tip, GreaterGreaterWashington: