In 2018, U.S. economic growth accelerated, but did this growth benefit the country as a whole? The Census Bureau’s 2018 edition of its report Income and Poverty in the United States sheds light on several fundamental metrics of the economy’s health. The report presents both unambiguously good changes and some mixed figures, writes AAF’s Labor Market Policy Data Analyst Isabel Soto.

Highlights from the report:

• The typical worker saw a pay increase, as real median earnings of all workers increased by 3.4 percent;
• There are more workers – approximately 2.3 million additional full-time, year-round workers are in the labor force, with a particularly strong showing from women making up 1.6 million of the total increase; and
• Poverty is down 0.5 percentage points, putting it at its lowest rate since before the Great Recession.

Read the analysis.