U.S. household income hit an all-time high in 2025 — but the boost barely touched the people at the bottom of the income ladder. New Census data paint a split-screen economy: record wealth on paper, and continued strain underneath for lower earners.
Why It Matters
This report mostly reflects the economy before the safety-net cuts in President Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" took effect. That makes 2025 a baseline — the last clean look at incomes and poverty before those changes start showing up in the numbers.
The Numbers
- Real median household income: up 2.6% to $87,460 — the highest inflation-adjusted figure since records began in 1967.
- Median post-tax income: up 3.1% to $76,060.
- Official poverty rate: fell for a third straight year to 10.2% (~34.5 million people).
- Child poverty: a record low of 13.4%.
- Hispanic poverty: fell to a record low of 13.9%.
Who Got Left Behind
- The top 10% of earners saw incomes rise 1.7%; the bottom 10% saw essentially no change.
- Households at the 90th percentile earn roughly 13 times those at the 10th percentile ($261,300 vs. $20,010).
- The top fifth of households now take home 52.4% of all income; the bottom fifth gets just 3%.
The Racial Divide
- Asian American households: highest median income at $126,300.
- White households: $91,930.
- Black households: $59,980, though up 4.8% year-over-year — the largest gain of any group.
- Hispanic households: $73,260, essentially flat, even as poverty among Hispanics hit a record low.
The Catch: A Broader Hardship Measure
The Supplemental Poverty Measure — which accounts for taxes, benefits, housing, and medical costs — stayed roughly flat at 13.1%, nearly 3 points above the official rate. Medical expenses alone are estimated to have pushed 7.7 million additional people below that line.
Health Coverage
- National uninsured rate: steady at 7.9% (26.7 million people).
- Medicaid coverage dropped from 17.6% to 17.1% — about 1.4 million fewer people covered.
- Hispanic adults remain the most likely to be uninsured (21.8%), despite falling poverty in that group.
2025 looks like a banner year on the surface — record income, falling poverty. But the gains were concentrated at the top, medical costs are quietly deepening hardship, and public coverage is already eroding. Analysts see this as the last "clean" data point before deeper federal safety-net cuts start reshaping the picture.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey (1968–2026 ASEC); reporting by Axios.