Americans’ household income hit a record high in 2025 while the poverty rate fell to its lowest level ever, according to new US Census data.
Real median household income jumped 2.6% to $87,460 — the highest inflation-adjusted level since Census records began in 1967 and beating the previous peak reached in 2019.
The median post-tax household income rose 3.1% to $76,060.
The good news came despite a wild series of economic headlines in the US and beyond, touching on everything from tariffs to international conflicts.
“It represents continued economic growth,” Daniel Shoag, an economist and professor at Harvard University, said of the wage stats.
“We would expect income to keep going up. We saw a spike during the pandemic and then some drops after that … and we’re starting to see those COVID effects going away,” he told The Post on Wednesday.
Last year, the poverty rate fell half a percentage point to 10.2%, the second annual decline in a row, according to the data. In 2025, 34.5 million people were living in poverty in the US.
For children, the poverty rate fell to an all-time low of 13.4%.
The Census Bureau’s supplemental poverty line – which factors in non-cash government benefits and taxes – was 13.1%.
The agency measured a family with two adults and two children as living in poverty if their annual income was less than $32,649.
According to the Census Bureau, medical costs put 7.7 million more people below the supplemental poverty line last year.
Most people in the US had health insurance for either some or all of 2025, which was fairly steady from the previous year.
About 7.9% of the population, or 26.7 million people, were uninsured last year – still near historic lows.
Women’s paychecks rose 3.2% last year, while men’s dipped slightly. It narrowed the wage gap slightly, though women still earn roughly 84 cents for every dollar earned by men.
The majority of the earnings increase took place among high-earners. Income for the top 10% of American earners increased 1.7%, while it remained relatively flat among the bottom 10%.
Households in the 90th percentile saw income of about $261,300, while the 10th percentile earned $20,010.
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