On 5/4/06, Carol Kirschenbaum <carolkir@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
So what's considered a "middle-class" income these days? There's dirt poor/homeless (minimum wage and below), and there's million/billionaire--people whose response to gas shortages is to rush out and buy a hybrid, with cash. But can it be that the vast middle is actually "lower income"--or would be, if forced to live on one salary?
According to the U.S. Census Bureau (the top Google hit for "U.S. median income":
http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/4person.html
the median income of U.S. families in 2003 (the last year for which data are provided) was $65,093, up from $56,061 in 1998 and $14,747 in 1977 (the earliest year for which data are provided).
Another document (http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p60-229.pdf) reports that
Real median household income showed no change between 2003 and 2004.1 Both the number of people in poverty and the poverty rate increased between 2003 and 2004.
Appendix B in the same document explains the definition of poverty, which, I didn't know this although it makes perfect sense, varies with size of family and number of children.
(Dollars) Size of family unit Related children under 18 years None One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight or more One person (unrelated individual): Under 65 years. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,827 65 years and older. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,060 Two people: Householder under 65 years . . . . . . 12,649 13,020 Householder 65 years and older. . . 11,418 12,971 Three people. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14,776 15,205 15,219 Four people. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19,484 19,803 19,157 19,223 Five people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23,497 23,838 23,108 22,543 22,199 Six people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27,025 27,133 26,573 26,037 25,241 24,768 Seven people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31,096 31,290 30,621 30,154 29,285 28,271 27,159 Eight people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34,778 35,086 34,454 33,901 33,115 32,119 31,082 30,818 Nine people or more . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41,836 42,039 41,480 41,010 40,240 39,179 38,220 37,983 36,520
I say that this "makes sense" but clearly only on certain assumptions, the critical one being that children cost less than adults. Thus, for example, for an all-adult family of nine, the poverty level is $41,836, while for a family of nine composed of a single parent with eight children, the poverty level is $39,179.
Another quite interesting fact is the rise in the female/male earnings ratio, which has gone up from 0.589 in 1977 (when the median male earned $40,236 and the median female earned $19,238) to 0.765 in 2004 (when the median male earned $40,798 and the median famale earned $31,223). Plainly, the median male's earnings growth has stagnated while the median female's earnings growth has improved substantially. Thus the importance of two-income families in the new economy.
Cheers,
John
John McCreery The Word Works, Ltd. 55-13-202 Miyagaya, Nishi-ku Yokohama 220-0006, JAPAN ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html