Americans roughed up by the economy - Income falling back to the 1980s and early 1990s

Robert Samuelson in the Washington Post online:

We have a peculiar prosperity. The economy is escaping the confines of the Great Recession; auto sales now exceed 16 million annually, the highest since 2006.

But people don’t feel reassured. They’ve lost confidence in the future.

Americans feel roughed up by the economy, and their fears aren’t fading quickly...

They’re still suffering the aftershocks in lower incomes and wealth, as the tables below show.

The first table provides annual pretax income from wages, interest and the like.  The middle column shows the income of the median family, the one exactly in the middle of all families.

The column on the right shows the income of...“the solid middle class.”

If the population is divided into fifths, they’re the second fifth from the top: poorer than the richest 20 percent of Americans but richer than the other 60 percent.  

Though comfortable, they’re not awash in money.

	Family Income
	Median Family	Solid Middle Class
1989	$46,500	$73,500
2007	$53,100	$84,300
2013	$46,700	$76,400

From 1989 to 2007, income rose 14 percent for the median family and 15 percent for the solid middle family.

But the numbers’ second message is devastating: The Great Recession hurled incomes all the way back to the late 1980s and early 1990s...
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Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/robert-samuelson-the-roughed-up-american/2014/09/14/