This is false.
Real disposable personal income is higher today than any time before March 2020 [1]. Covid stimulus first dramatically raised (March '20 to '21) and then lowered (March '21 to June '22) that figure. But we hit a local maximum in April '25, after which real DPI started falling, though nevertheless only to the level we saw in spring '21 and early '25, and no point before.
(Real median household figures are more laggy. But they show the same trend [2]. On a national level, these figures are up.)
Yes. That’s what the “real” part communicates in economics data.
> how does that compare to cost of living? The conclusion you are coming to is not supported by the data you provided alone
If aggregate real personal disposable incomes are up, and real median household incomes are up, for real median household disposable incomes to be down requires an extreme increase in lower income households’ costs of living compared with higher incomes households’. (No, rising wealth wouldn’t fix that disparity because we’re measuring income and consumption, the former which exempts capital gains.)
Inflation effects are unevenly spread across households [1]. But the slope of the effect, at least as of ‘21, was insufficient to shift the median negative. What it probably was sufficient to do, especially by 2024, is shift somewhere between the lower decile to maybe quartile’s real disposable household income negative since ~2025 to 2018, when we last moderated interest rates. But not since the GFC.
TL; DR While OP’s statement is true of some households, and probably most households in the lower decile to quarter, it’s not true in general. (Caveat: it may be true if we include recent Medicaid and poverty-related cuts.)
[1] https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/report...
You’re correct. See the personal savings rate [1]. If we observe the distribution, the lower quartile to third of households have no material savings [2].
[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT
[2] https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2025-economic-we...
The US had recovered to full pre-recession employment levels by 2017[1].
Unemployment is around 4% right now.
I can’t speak to discretionary income or why the market is high, and maybe there is some sort of structural “underemployment” going on, but people are working.
[1] https://www.cbpp.org/research/chart-book-the-legacy-of-the-g...
