Missourians last year saw the largest gains in household income since before the recession, according to new U.S. Census estimates released Thursday.
The state’s median household income of $50,238 represented a 3.8 percent increase, adjusted for inflation, from the previous year, and was the largest growth seen in years.
That figure came after nearly a decade of mostly declining or stagnant wages, however, and was still below what the typical Missouri household earned before the housing crisis.
The gains in Missouri mirrored a nationwide trend of rising incomes and declines in poverty. The share of the very poorest residents, those earning below $10,000, dropped from 8.2 percent to 7 percent, and the official poverty rate for the state declined slightly, to 14.8 percent, though the change was just within the Census survey margin of error. The rate of uninsured Missourians also shrank to 9.8 percent, down from 11.7 percent last year.
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“Is this a trend? Or is this just a one-year kind of blip? I’m not sure,” said Mark Rank, a Washington University professor who studies poverty and inequality. He said wages, particularly for men in their prime working years, have been stagnant for decades, and more years of consistent gains will be needed to make up for years of no progress.
“The median wage today is not any higher than it was in 1973,” he said.
In Illinois, median household income grew by 3.6 percent, to $59,588, though incomes were stagnant in the Metro East.
Within the St. Louis metro region, the estimated income growth was sluggish, particularly compared to the pace of growth in the Kansas City area, which saw median income rise by an estimated 6 percent, adjusted for inflation, to $60,502. In the St. Louis region, median household income rose by 1.6 percent, to $55,535.
The Census release included data for larger counties within the state’s metro areas, but the variation in numbers between counties is difficult to dissect due to larger margins of error.
Among area counties, the city of St. Louis saw the most improvement: Adjusted for inflation, the 6.7 percent increase brought the median household income to $38,397. That amount is below pre-recession levels, and still ranks well below the rest of the region. That change was within the margin of error.
The estimated poverty rate in the city dropped sharply, from 28.5 percent to 24.9 percent.
A separate Census survey released Tuesday showed meaningful gains among those in the bottom half of the income spectrum. At the local level, small sampling sizes make it hard to identify where income gains are concentrated.
Howard Wall, an economist at Lindenwood University, said the reports were encouraging, though he said it was unclear if a portion of income growth came from government transfers such as Social Security income and Obamacare subsidies, as opposed to higher wages. But the local job market has seen strong gains this year, and “taken altogether,” he said, “I think median incomes are rising, which is good.
“I think things are better more broadly,” he added, “and when they’re better more broadly, then the lower end is getting better too.”