More Cash, Fewer People

Even as the average size of U.S. households has shrunk incomes in constant terms per household has increased, this is true for all households whether they have one person or six.

I downloaded a spreadsheet from the Census Bureau on size of households and median and mean incomes. It shows the improvement from 1975 to 2018 in 2018 dollars adjusted for inflation on a year by year basis. But here are the starting figures and the closing figures.

First, data for all households. In 1975 the mean income per household was $58,636, by 2018 it was $90,021. The median income over the same period rose from $50,214 to $63,179. As for the average size of the household, it shrank from 2.89 to 2.52 by 2018. So income rose even as the number of people in the household was reduced in size.

During the same period the number of single person households rose dramatically, from 14.98 million to 36,48 million. Median income rose from $20,452 to $31,954, and mean income rose from $28,461 to $47,494. That single person households saw income rise must depress those who insist the ONLY reason we see household income rising is because there are more two earner households. Surely an increase in the number of duo income earners per household can’t be used to explain the improvement in single person household incomes.

For two people households the raw numbers increased from 22.32 million to 44,373 million. Median income rose from $47,538 to $70,870 while mean income rose from $56,525 to $95,828.

Three person households increased from 12.5 million to 19,37 million — however the peak year for three person households was 2013. The median income increase from $59,930 to $82,139 while mean income rose from $66,819 to $108,614.

Four person households increased in raw numbers from 11.4 million to 16.4 million. Their median income rose from $67,445 to $97,522, while mean household income rose from $74,445 to $125,561.

Five person households rose slightly from 6.26 million to 7.43 million. Median household income rose from $70,168 to $93,297 and mean household income rose from $79,152 to $121,292.

The number of six person household shrank from 3 million to 2.9 million. Their median household income increased from $68,692 to $86,820 while mean income increased from $76,781 to $115,768.

The last category is households of 7 or more, which shrank substantially from 2.37 million households to 1.6 million. Between 1975 and 2018 median household income increased from $62,228 to $116,824 and mean household income increased from $72,658 to $116,824.