Real Median Household Income
Imagine comparing your grandparents' income in 1985 to yours today. If you just compare the dollar amounts, theirs looks tiny. But what could that money actually buy back then? This dataset answers that question by converting all historical incomes to 2023 dollars. So when you look at the numbers, you're seeing apples-to-apples: real earning power, not just inflation-inflated numbers. You can actually see whether typical households are getting ahead or treading water over the decades.
- Source rows:
- 42
- Coverage:
- 1984-01-01T00:00:00Z – 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z
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Full dataset without transformation
View defined in OpenData · Source: fred
Dataset overview
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Questions this data answers
- How has median household income changed since 1984 after accounting for inflation?
- Did typical household incomes grow faster or slower than inflation in recent years?
- What was the peak year for real median household income, and how does it compare to today?
- How does the current year's median income compare to the previous decade?
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CSV: all rows from the default table.
Table filters, sorting and pagination are not included.
Columns
2 columns in this table.