Out of a ditch

such rise since the 1960s.

“Real median household income has finally completed its nine- year slog of digging out of the ditch,” says IHS Markit economist Chris Christopher.

The median income of $ 59,000 last year surpassed the level in 1999 as the highest, but Census officials discouraged that comparison because the measuring method changed in 2014.

The number of Americans living in poverty fell to 40.6 million from 43.1 million, lowering the poverty rate to 12.7% from 13.5% and placing it marginally above the pre- recession level.

John Bouman, president of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, called the decline “welcome” but “poverty remains a persistent problem in this country, afflicting tens of millions of people.”