In 2015 mean income increased more than median income which means...

that while everyone is doing a little better, the rich continue to get disproportionately richer.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-13/rich-americans-are-changing-what-it-means-to-be-average

"But the difference between median and mean household income hit a record last year, which suggests the rich got richer as they left the typical American household further behind.

Specifically, median household income, after adjusting for inflation, rose 3.2 percent in 2016 to $59,039, while mean income increased at a bit of a faster clip – 3.6 percent – to $83,143. That’s a difference of $24,104, up from $23,035 in 2015 and just $5,318 when the series started in 1967.

Because the mean is influenced by especially high or low earners on either end of the spectrum, it reflects the emergence of disproportionately affluent outliers. For example, if  a billionaire were to move into a middle-class neighborhood, median income – the exact midpoint of households in the area, at which half earn above and half earn below – would remain basically the same. But the mean, or neighborhood average, would skyrocket.

“The growing wedge between median and mean household incomes is a key way that rising inequality has manifested in recent decades,’’ said Josh Bivens, director of research at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute."


Wasn't the right wing recently saying that income disparity isn't a problem?



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