(Sept 10): US inflation-adjusted household income increased 4% last year, the first annual gain since 2019, as price increases moderated.

The median income last year was US$80,610 (RM351,173) compared with US$77,540 in 2022, according to the Census Bureau’s annual report on income, poverty and health insurance coverage.

The data highlight the impact from cooling inflation during 2023, even though many Americans felt like the economy was in a recession because prices for everything from grocery items to housing and car insurance remained much higher than they were before the pandemic.

And even with the increase last year, median incomes remained US$600 lower than where they were in 2019.

The report shows a divergence by race and gender. White households saw an increase in income, while Black, Asian and Hispanic families saw no significant change. And real median earnings for full-time working men, regardless of their ethnicity, rose twice as fast as those of women, reversing recent trends.

The official US poverty rate — which is calculated before taxes and excludes stimulus payments and tax credits — fell 0.4 percentage point to 11.1%. The rate has been roughly cut in half over the past six decades, and reached a record low before the pandemic.

However, a supplemental poverty measure — which is based on post-tax income and includes government-transfer payments — rose 0.5 percentage point to 12.9% last year.

The economy has been a top issue during the presidential election campaign.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, has proposed an agenda that targets low- and middle-class families through measures including tax credits and provisions for cheaper prescription drugs. Her opponent, former president Donald Trump, has blamed the Biden Administration — and Harris — for high costs of living that make Americans feel worse off than when he was leading the country.

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