Summer Of Recovery Update: About That Recession

The recession officially ended all the way back in 2009.: Yet

Household income is down sharply since the recession ended three years ago, according to a report released Thursday, providing another sign of the stubborn weakness of the economic recovery.

From June 2009 to June 2012, inflation-adjusted median household income fell 4.8 percent, to $50,964, according to a report by Sentier Research, a firm headed by two former Census Bureau officials.

Incomes have dropped more since the beginning of the recovery than they did during the recession itself, when they declined 2.6 percent, according to the report, which analyzed data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. The recession, the most severe since the Great Depression, lasted from December 2007 to June 2009.

Overall, median income is 7.2 percent below its December 2007 level and 8.1 percent below where it stood in January 2000, when it was $55,470, according to the report.

…This summer, the Federal Reserve reported that the downturn eviscerated two decades of gains in Americans’ wealth. The central bank said the median net worth of families plunged by 39 percent in just three years, from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010, pushing that measure back to nearly 1992 levels.

In all seriousness, it’s hard to believe that there are people who look at numbers like these and go, “Wow, we really need another four years of this!” It’s like getting the Bubonic Plague and telling doctors, “Don’t cure me yet! Give it a little longer to work!”

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