Median Household Income
What the household in the middle earns in a year.
Hover the line to read any month. Drag across the chart to zoom; double-click to reset.
These are nominal dollars, the prices of each year. Flip "today's dollars" to strip out inflation and compare real buying power across time.
Source: FRED · MEHOINUSA646N · series · Jan 1984 to Jan 2024
· latest-revised
Reading it. Nominal (current) dollars, before taxes. The household in the middle, not the average (which the top end pulls up). Flip to today's dollars to see real gains.
About the bands. Shaded spans are NBER-dated US recessions, drawn as factual overlays. They mark when the economy contracted, not why. Lining an event or policy up with a move on this chart is not evidence that it caused the move.