Americans’ inflation-adjusted incomes rebounded to pre-pandemic levels last year

WASHINGTON — The inflation-adjusted median income of U.S. households rose last year to about its 2019 level, overcoming the largest price increase in four decades and restoring purchasing power for most Americans.

The percentage of Americans living in poverty also fell slightly last year, to 11.1% from 11.5% in 2022. But the ratio of women’s median income to men’s increased for the first time in more than two decades, as men’s income rose more than women’s in 2023.

The latest data came Tuesday in an annual report from the Census Bureau, which said the median household income, adjusted for inflation, rose 4% to $80,610 in 2023, up from $77,450 in 2022. It was the first increase since 2019 and is essentially unchanged from that year’s figure of $81,210, officials said. (The median income figure is the point at which half the population is above it and half is below it, and is less skewed by extreme incomes than the average.)

“We are back to the pre-COVID peak that we were experiencing,” said Liana Fox, assistant division chief of the Census Bureau’s Division of Social, Economic and Housing Statistics.

The numbers could become a talking point on the presidential campaign trail if Vice President Kamala Harris cites them as evidence that Americans’ financial health has largely been restored after inflation peaked at 9.1% in 2022. Former President Donald Trump could counter that household income grew faster in his first three years in office than in the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration, even though incomes fell during his administration after the pandemic struck in 2020.