comparing cycles
With the income & poverty nums for 2006 out yesterday, I thought I’d
compare cycles. Here’s what happened to the poverty rate and real
median household incomes 5 years after a recession.
change in
-------------------------------
poverty rate median income
1982-87 -1.6 +9.6% 1991-96 -0.5 +4.4 2001-06 +0.6 +0.2
Poverty rate went from a fairly sharp decline in the 1980s to a
rise in the 2000s, and median income went from a strong rise to
basically unch (as they say on Wall Street). This really is the most
class-skewed expansion since at least the 1920s.
Doug