U.S. households finally earn more than they did in 1999

— A long, plodding period of economic growth has finally generated enough gains for the average American household to surpass the income level it enjoyed two decades ago.

The median household income in the U.S. rose to $59,039 last year, up 3.2 percent after adjusting for inflation, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. That marked the second straight year of strong gains, and it brought the median income — in which half of households earn more and half less — above the previous peak in 1999.

The nation’s poverty rate fell last year to 12.7 percent, from 13.5 percent in 2015 and 14.8 percent in 2014.

The back-to-back drop translates into a decline of about 6 million people in poverty over the last two years. The latest poverty rate is comparable to the figure in 2007, the year before the Great Recession took hold.

The latest improvement in incomes and poverty was stronger than what some analysts were expecting and it reflected a steadily growing economy in which more people are finding work.

Though the economic recovery and recent wage gains have been sluggish by historical standards, the current period of growth is one of the longest. That has continued to lift the number of people employed yearround and in full-time jobs, which in turn has helped boost those with health insurance, a separate but important measure of economic wellbeing.

The increased employment, coupled with changes brought by the Affordable Care Act under President Barack Obama, has sharply lowered the ranks of Americans without medical coverage in recent years.

The Census Bureau said Tuesday that 8.8 percent of people in the U.S. went without health insurance in 2016 for the entire year. That compares with an uninsured rate of 9.1 percent in 2015 and 13.3 percent in 2013. The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, had its first full year of impact in 2014.

Trudi J. Renwick, an assistant division chief at the Census Bureau, cautioned that median income figures of the last few years are difficult to compare directly with prior years because of a change in how the Census Bureau collects income data. At the same time, she noted: “This has been two consecutive years of very strong income growth.”

In 2015, the U.S. median income jumped 5.2 percent, the sharpest annual increase on record.