Not-Great News on Income and Poverty
From the Census:
- Median household income was $53,657 in 2014, not statistically different in real terms from the 2013 median of $54,462 (Figure 1 and Table 1). This is the third consecutive year that the annual change was not statistically significant, following two consecutive years of annual declines in median household income.
- In 2014, real median household income was 6.5 percent lower than in 2007, the year before the most recent recession (Figure 1 and Table A-1).
- In 2014, the official poverty rate was 14.8 percent. There were 46.7 million people in poverty. Neither the poverty rate nor the number of people in poverty were statistically different from the 2013 estimates (Figure 4 and Table 3).
- For the fourth consecutive year,
the number of people in poverty
at the national level was not statistically
different from the previous
year’s estimates (Figure 4 and
Table 3).
19 The Office of Management and Budget
determined the official definition of poverty
in Statistical Policy Directive 14. Appendix B
provides a more detailed description of how the
Census Bureau calculates poverty.
- The 2014 poverty rate was 2.3
percentage points higher than in
2007, the year before the most
recent recession (Figure 4)
