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Despite media reports that try to minimize our progress, household income in the United States has risen sharply since 2014. Back then, inflation-adjusted median household income stood at $55,913. In 2018, it was $63,179. This $7,266 increase amounts to a 13 percent hike in income over the past four years. Liberal and Democratic contentions that the Trump economy only benefits the wealthy fall flat in the face of the data. Put this increase in incomes into perspective. TRENDING: It Sounds Like Lindsey Graham Now Has Some Damning Dirt on Christopher Steele In the past 20 years, since 1999, median household...

Obama: "...the economy is far stronger now than it was four and a half years ago." ...as long as one ignores the reality of the following chart... We've seen macro "Hope" and micro "Reality", but for the man in the street, it would appear from the chart above that the trajectory for 'recovery' green shoots is decidedly down and getting worse... even as the President tells the American public they are so much better off... (h/t @Not_Jim_Cramer)

Sequestration, the measly slowdown in the growth rate of government spending, was President Obama and his Chief of Staff (now Treasury Secretary) Jacob Lew’s idea. Now President Obama has signed it into law. Today, I received an email from The White House explaining that it is all the Republicans fault for not closing tax loopholes on the wealthiest Americans. Furthermore, hundred of thousands of Americans will lose their jobs … or see their paycheck reduced. Dang, I wish Obama had thought of that in the first place!! Well, this is a better forecast that Maxine Waters’ (D-CA) prediction of 170...

Americans saw their income drop so dramatically in January that it marked the deepest one-month decline in 20 years. - Personal income decreased by $505.5 billion in January, or 3.6%, compared to December (on a seasonally adjusted and annualized basis). That's the most dramatic decline since January 1993, according to the Commerce Department. It's something of a combination of one-time events, though. Monthly income was unusually high in December because companies paid out early dividends to avoid upcoming tax hikes. Companies like Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500), Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500), and Costco Wholesale Corp paid special dividends to their shareholders...

Today’s economic report has good and bad news, and both are tempered by the effects of government intervention.  The Commerce Department reports that personal income dropped 3.6% in January, the worst such monthly decline in exactly 20 years, but that consumer spending seems unaffected: Personal income decreased $505.5 billion, or 3.6 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) decreased $491.4 billion, or 4.0 percent, in January, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $18.2 billion, or 0.2 percent. In December, personal income increased $353.4 billion, or 2.6 percent, DPI increased $325.7 billion, or 2.7 percent, and...

On January 1 your payroll taxes went up a couple of percentage points. That caused household income to drop like a stone, the sharpest drop in 20 years. Income dropped 3.6 percent, hitting its lowest level in more than five years. By the way, gas prices are inching back up too. The average American family’s income is going backwards, while the federal government continues to grow and grow and grow. Yet, as congressional leaders and the president meet at the White House today, President Obama will badger Republicans for even more tax increases as part of a deal to avoid...

~ By: Larry Walker, Jr. ~For the first time since World War II, the National Debt of the United States has exceeded personal income, on a per capita basis. The point of no return was breached in 2010, during Barack Obama’s second year in office, and the derangement continues to spin hopelessly out of control. This means that every dollar earned by an American citizen is now owned by the federal government, and then some. That’s right, the average annual income of most working-class Americans now belongs to the federal government. The warning of Thomas Jefferson has come to pass,...

PERSONAL INCOME DROPS 3.2% SINCE OBAMA... DEVELOPING... Just a headline for now.

Personal income in California fell last year for the first time since the Great Depression, the Commerce Department said Thursday. State income plunged even more sharply in 2009 than the similar, historic drop that occurred on a national basis, a notable reversal given that California generally has beaten the national averages throughout the 80-year history of this report. Personal income includes wages and salaries, health and pension benefits, rents, dividends and interest, federal payments such as unemployment and Social Security, and just about every form of wealth except stock sales and other capital gains. The 2.5 percent drop in statewide...

It is hard to imagine we’ve heard the last of Barack Obama’s interactions with William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright. But lately John McCain seems much more interested in talking about another Obama encounter. It’s the now infamous conversation Obama had with “Joe the Plumber”--and one particular phrase that Obama uttered in the course of it.For those who may have been in hibernation the last few days, Joe the Plumber--whose real name is Joe Wurzelbacher--met Obama during an Ohio campaign event last weekend. Wurzelbacher was concerned about Obama’s tax plan, which would raise taxes on wealthy Americans. In the course of...

Try to imagine what the New York Times did with the following data: Go ahead. Then go to the full post to find out.Here it is (link requires free registration; the Times's figure of $55,714 differs from the table above because of rounding):   The New York Times has to work very hard to make the performance of the economy during the past few years look bad. This morning, David Cay Johnston did his part.Bear with the technical stuff for a bit; the meat will arrive shortly.Every year, the IRS publishes information about the tax returns it received in the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. consumer spending rose 0.2 percent in October, as expected, driving the personal saving rate into negative territory for the fifth straight month, a government report showed on Thursday. Personal income also rose in October, by 0.4 percent - slightly less than the 0.5 percent increase forecast by Wall Street, the Commerce Department said. That followed an outsized 1.7 percent rise in income in September, which was driven by insurance payments in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The department's inflation measure - closely watched by policy-makers at the Federal Reserve - rose just 0.1 percent...

This is getting to be a habit, albeit mostly a pleasant one. The government revised its measure of first quarter economic growth again yesterday to 3.8%, up from its previous estimate of 3.5%, which was above its initial estimate of 3.1%. You may recall that the initial estimate inspired a great deal of fretting that the current economic expansion was heading south. But the 3.8% figure -- despite high oil prices -- matches the rate for the fourth quarter of 2004 and means that growth has now averaged close to a 4% annual rate for eight consecutive quarters going back...

WASHINGTON - Personal incomes which had been bolstered by a large stock dividend payment in December plunged 2.3 percent in January, the sharpest decline in more than a decade. Consumer spending was flat, the government reported Monday.

State's tax collections falling short of forecast Bureau report thwarts easy solution for health-care shortfall By STEVEN WALTERSswalters@journalsentinel.com Posted: Feb. 10, 2004 Madison - A new report warns that state tax collections will fall 1% below expectations by mid-2005, giving elected officials no new money to pay for a $401 million shortfall in health-care programs for the elderly, poor and disabled. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau report, released Tuesday, warns that lagging income tax collections mean the state's operating fund faces a deficit of $32.2 million by mid-2005. By law, the state cannot end a budget cycle in the red. Reflecting...

    Home > News > News Release Archive > 2004 > News Release: Quarterly State Personal Income News Release The tables in this release are available in an XLS spreadsheet and the entire release is available in PDF format. Many of the tables in our news releases are very wide. Printing tips are available. EMBARGOED UNTIL RELEASE AT 8:30 A.M. EST, TUESDAY, January 27, 2004 Mathew von Kerczek (202) 606–9250 (Estimates) BEA 04—03 G. Andrew Bernat Jr.: (202) 606–9235 (Analysis) E-mail inquiries: RegRelease@bea.gov  State Personal Income: Third Quarter 2003 Personal income for the Nation grew 1.1 percent in the third quarter...

CORRECTED - TABLE-U.S. Nov personal income rose 0.5 pct Tuesday December 23, 10:05 am ET In WASHINGTON table headlined "TABLE-U.S. Nov personal income rose 0.5 pct" please note the figures given for "Percent Changes, chained 2000 dollars" for personal consumption and consumption on durables and nondurables were incorrect. The figures given were changes in chained 2000 dollars not in percent. A corrected repetition follows. WASHINGTON, Dec 23 (Reuters) - U.S. Commerce Department personal income and spending estimates, in seasonally adjusted annual rates. Percent Changes, current dollars . Nov Oct Sept Aug Personal Income 0.5 0.2 0.3 0.2 Wages/Salaries 0.3 0.2...

U.S. Oct personal income rose 0.4 pct Wednesday November 26, 8:32 am ET WASHINGTON, Nov 26 (Reuters) - U.S. Commerce Department personal income and spending estimates, in seasonally adjusted annual rates. Percent Changes, current dollars . Oct Sep Aug Jul Personal Income 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.3 Wages/Salaries 0.2 0.1 0.2 unch Disposable Income 0.4 -1.0 1.0 1.6 Personal Consumption unch -0.3 1.0 0.9 Durables -2.3 -5.0 3.7 3.5 Nondurables -0.1 0.2 1.3 1.0 Services 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.3 Saving Rate, pct 3.3 3.0 3.6 3.7 Percent Changes, chained '96 dollars . Oct Sep Aug Jul Personal Consumption unch -0.6 0.8...

U.S. Sept personal income rose 0.3 pct Friday October 31, 8:30 am ET WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (Reuters) - U.S. Commerce Department personal income and spending estimates, in seasonally adjusted annual rates. Percent Changes, current dollars . Sep Aug Jul Jun Personal Income 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.4 Wages/Salaries 0.1 0.2 unch 0.4 Disposable Income -1.0 1.0 1.6 0.4 Personal Consumption -0.3 1.1 1.0 0.7 Durables -5.1 3.8 3.5 0.9 Nondurables 0.3 1.4 1.0 1.0 Services 0.4 0.3 0.4 0.5 Saving Rate, pct 2.9 3.5 3.6 3.0 Percent Changes, chained '96 dollars . Sep Aug Jul Jun Personal Consumption -0.6 0.8 0.8...

U.S. Aug personal income rose 0.2 pct Monday September 29, 8:32 am ET WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 (Reuters) - U.S. Commerce Department personal income and spending estimates, in seasonally adjusted annual rates. Percent Changes, current dollars . Aug Jul Jun May Personal Income 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.4 Wages/Salaries 0.1 unch 0.4 0.3 Disposable Income 0.9 1.5 0.4 0.4 Personal Consumption 0.8 0.9 0.7 0.5 Durables 2.8 3.3 0.9 0.6 Nondurables 0.9 0.9 1.0 0.2 Services 0.3 0.5 0.5 0.6 Saving Rate, pct 3.8 3.6 3.0 3.3 Percent Changes, chained '96 dollars . Aug Jul Jun May Personal Consumption 0.5 0.7 0.5...