AMERICANS’ INCOMES DOWN AS INFLATION GOES UP

The U.S. median household income in 2021 was $70,800, down from 2020’s median of $71,200, U.S. Census Bureau data shows.

The 2020 figure dropped from 2019’s due to economic lockdowns during the COVID War.

The 2020 and 2021 figures were as high as they were jacked up because of federal stimulus payments to individuals.

Incomes were highest in the West at $79,400, followed by the Northeast at $77,500. The median was $71,100 in the Midwest and $63,400 in the South.

A complete government sick joke—meaning that a family of four could never make ends meet in the U.S. making less than $50,000 a year—the official poverty rate for that segment is $27,740. Last year, when inflation was 7 percent compared to 8.5 percent this year, the poverty rate was 11.6 percent. 

Measurements of poverty disregard the amount of taxes a household pays or how much it receives in government supports, such as child tax credits, housing vouchers, or subsidized school lunches.

A flat median income means that household purchasing power is declining at the rate of inflation.

“The combination of continued Fed tightening and elevated inflation, which has caused real personal income to contract in recent quarters, will lead to retrenchment in real consumer spending beginning in the first quarter of 2023,” Wells Fargo Bank senior economist Tim Quinlan, told The Wall Street Journal.

TRENDPOST: Mr. Quinlan has missed the point that even if consumers are spending about the same amount of dollars, they actually are buying less: inflation has shrunk shoppers’ purchasing power by 8.3 percent in the last 12 months, according to August’s official inflation rate.

TREND FORECAST: The number of dollars government agencies report being spent is not adjusted to reflect inflation.

For the rest of this year, actual purchasing power will continue to shrink three or four times faster than wages are growing in our increasingly tight labor market.