Black Americans’ Median Wealth Could Disappear in One Generation

It’s no secret that, as the saying goes, “The rent is too damn high.” Across the nation, housing is becoming increasingly expensive for many Americans. But the story of the present-day housing crisis is not just a story of rising rents; it’s also a story of systemic racism. Today’s rising housing prices exacerbate the racial wealth gap in the US by making it more difficult for Black people to accumulate wealth since the 2008 recession, thus further decimating Black wealth.

Median wage falls to lowest level since 1998

Last year the median wage hit its lowest level since 1998, revealing that at least half of American workers are being left behind as the economy slowly recovers from the Great Recession.

But at the top, wages soared — the latest indication in a long-running trend of increasing inequality, with income gains going to top earners while the majority of workers see stagnant or falling wages.

Al Jazeera is the first news organization to report these figures from the Social Security Administration (SSA), which were released late in October.

Median Income Falls For 5th Year, Inequality At Record High

No wonder so few Americans seem to think their economy is in recovery: They keep getting poorer. Unless they are rich, in which case they keep getting richer.

Median household income fell for the fifth straight year in 2012, the Census Bureau reported on Tuesday, to $51,017. That was the lowest annual income, adjusted for inflation, since 1995.

U.S. Median Income Falls To $26,364 As Pessimism Reaches 10-Year High

Americans' incomes are falling, perhaps a reason why pessimism about their personal finances is now the lowest it's been in a decade.

The median income fell in 2010 for the second year in a row to $26,364, a 1.2 percent drop from 2009, and the lowest level since 1999, according to David Cay Johnston at Reuters.

Meanwhile, U.S. households are growing increasingly concerned about their finances with more than 20 percent of adult Americans rating their financial situation as "poor," a Gallup poll finds. That's a larger share than the 16 to 19 percent of Americans who viewed their finances as poor during and after the recession. It's also the highest percentage since 2001, the first year of the survey, according to Gallup.

In some ways, the financial crisis has taken more of a toll on the employed during the recovery. Indeed, Americans' incomes have fallen more during the recovery than they did during the recession. Incomes dropped 6.7 percent during the recovery between June 2009 and June 2011, compared to a 3.2 percent drop during the recession from December 2007 to June 2009, a study from former Census Bureau officials found.