[eggsnbacon1]

> Real median per capita income is the highest its ever been regardless of which inflation index you use

Median is very misleading because of rise in income inequality. More than 50% of gains in median income last 20 years have gone to the top 25% https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-...

And working less hours is also skewed by the rise of millions of gig jobs that don't have set hours.

The top 25% of the population is doing great by any measure. But when you discard the top 25%, the rest doesn't look so good. Income inequality in US is higher than almost every other industrialized nation. As high as it was in the 30's when massive social unrest gave rise to unions and worker protections.

When you factor in student loan debt and minimum wage being degraded by inflation and gig jobs, the bottom 50% are poorer than ever. As of this year, student loans have eclipsed credit card and auto loans as the second largest form of consumer debt behind mortgages

[leetcrew]

> Median is very misleading because of rise in income inequality. More than 50% of gains in median income last 20 years have gone to the top 25%

how can this possibly make sense? by definition, the earnings of the top quartile cannot affect the median.

[eggsnbacon1]

I'm an idiot, was confused with mean

[bhupy]

Median is immune to outliers, so it's generally what you want to look at even in spite of inequality.

That being said, you can even look at the per-quintile levels -> https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p...

See table H-1, All Races (it's an Excel spreadsheet). Across all quintiles, including the bottom 2, inflation-adjusted income has increased.

> When you factor in student loan debt

The median number of years to recoup the cost of a bachelors degree, adjusted for inflation, has gone down since the 1980’s, from about 22 years to about 10 years -> https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2014/09/the-va...