Median US income rises to highest on record even as Americans feel affordability pinch

Americans' median household income rose to $87,460, or 2.6%, in 2025, the first year of President Donald Trump's second term, according to Census Bureau data released Tuesday.

This is the highest household income, which is adjusted for inflation, since the agency started measuring it in 1967.

Despite the increase in income, many Americans are feeling financially squeezed as prices for groceries, utilities , housing costs and other essentials remain stubbornly high after years of high inflation during the Biden administration. Trump promised during the 2024 presidential campaign that he would quickly reduce prices and inflation, though that has yet to happen.

Both Republicans and Democrats have acknowledged that the nation is suffering from an affordability crisis , which has been exacerbated this year by the steep increase in gasoline and oil prices sparked by the US-Iran war.

Meanwhile, the poverty rate dipped by half a percentage point to 10.2% in 2025, and the uninsured rate stayed essentially the same at 7.9%. The poverty rate for children fell a percentage point to 13.4%, the lowest on record.

However, median earnings for full-time year-round workers did not change significantly in 2025, although women saw an increase in earnings of 3.2%.

Women in full-time year-round jobs earned 83.9% of what their male counterparts did in 2025, up from 80.6%. The jump, which follows two years of declines in the earnings ratio, is the first statistically significant annual increase since 2016.

Part of the disconnect between the increase in household income and median earnings is that the former includes income from part-time and part-year earnings, as well as from Social Security benefits, pensions and unemployment compensation, according to the Census Bureau.

The latest census report does not include sweeping cuts to Medicaid and food stamps — two of the nation's key safety-net programs — that are part of the Republicans' "One Big, Beautiful Bill," which Trump signed into law in July 2025.

"These cuts are already taking food assistance and health care away from millions of people who need it, driving up poverty and hardship," Sharon Parrott, president of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said in a statement.

She noted that food stamps lifted more than 3 million people out of poverty last year, according to the Census Bureau's Supplemental Poverty Measure, which takes into account certain government benefits and household expenses.