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Joint Economic Committee Democrats
Income Charts
Chart 1.1
Last updated 9/5/06
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Until the early 1970s, real (inflation-adjusted) pre-tax money income rose rapidly and nearly uniformly across all income groups, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Since the early 1970s, however, income inequality has increased substantially as real household income has grown much more slowly in the middle and bottom of the distribution than it has at the top.
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Median household income increased by about 15 percent between 1973 and 2005 after adjusting for inflation, as did income at the 20th percentile of the distribution. (Half of all households have income larger than the median, and half have income smaller than the median. The poorest fifth of all households have incomes that are smaller than the income at the 20th percentile.)
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In contrast, real income at the 95th percentile increased by 51 percent over the same time period. (Only 5 percent of households have incomes greater than or equal to the income at the 95th percentile.)
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Median income and income at the 20th percentile grew at an average annual rate of about 0.5 percent from 1973 to 2005, after adjusting for inflation, while real income at the 95th percentile increased at an average annual rate of 1.3 percent.
Source: Joint Economic Committee, based on U.S. Census Bureau historical data on family income for 1947-1967 and household income for years after 1967. Click here for more information about the sources of income data.
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