Household income is a measure of current private income commonly used by the
United States government and private institutions. To measure the income of a
household, the pre-tax money receipts of all residents over the age of 15 over a single year are combined. Most of these receipts are in the form of wages and salaries (before withholding and other taxes), but many other forms of income, such as unemployment insurance, disability,
child support, etc., are included as well. The residents of the household do not have to be related to the householder for their earnings to be considered part of the household's income.
As households tend to share a common economic fate, the use of household income remains among the most widely accepted measures of income. However, the size of a household, which is commonly not considered, creates significant distortions which offset gains or decreases in household income and makes direct comparisons between quintiles impossible.
In 2007, the
median annual household income rose 1.3% to $50,233.00 according to the
Census Bureau.
The real median earnings of men who worked full time, year-round climbed between 2006 and 2007, from $43,460 to $45,113. For women, the corresponding increase was from $33,437 to $35,102. The median income per household member (including all working and non-working members above the age of 14) was $26,036 in 2006.
In 2006, there were approximately 116,011,000 households in the United States. 19.26% of all households had annual incomes exceeding $100,000,
12.3% fell below the
federal poverty threshold and the bottom 20% earned less than $19,178.
The aggregate income distribution is highly concentrated towards the top, with the top 6.37% earning roughly one third of all income, and those with upper-middle incomes control a large, though declining, share of the total earned income.
, which had decreased slowly after
World War II until 1970, began to increase slowly in the 1970s, but declined in 2007.
Households in the top
quintile, 77% of which had two or more income earners, had incomes exceeding $91,705. Households in the mid quintile, with a mean of one income earner per household had incomes between $36,000 and $57,657. Households in the lowest quintile had a mean number of workers of zero.
The 2006 economic survey also found that households in the top two
income quintiles, those with an annual household income exceeding $60,000, had a
median of two income earners while those in the lower quintiles (2nd and middle quintile) had median of only one income earner per household. Due to high
unemployment among those in the lowest quintile the median number of income earners for this particular group was zero.
[ (Original source reports "median" as "mean".)] Overall, the
United States followed the trend of other
developed nations with a relatively large population of relatively
affluent households outnumbering the poor. Among those in between the extremes of the income strata are a large number of households with moderately high middle class incomes
and an even larger number of households with moderately low incomes.
While the median household income has increased 30% since 1990, it has increased only slightly when considering inflation. In 1990, the median household income was $30,056 or $44,603 in 2003 dollars. While personal income has remained relatively stagnant over the past few decades, household income has risen due to the rising percentage of households with two or more income earners. Between 1999 and 2004 household income stagnated showing a slight increase since 2004.
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, per capita income has increased every year for the past 10 years, with an annual average of 5.2% gains for the past 4 years.
