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Income Inequality Declining in the Trump Years

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President Donald J. Trump is cheered by employees at the Army Tank Plant Wednesday, March 20, 2019, at the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center in Lima, Ohio. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

Citizens of these United States have much to be thankful for. More jobs, higher incomes, less poverty are all good signs of an improving society.

Fewer Citizens Living in Poverty

“By important measurements, life is getting better in the United States, especially for those at the bottom of the income ladder, writes James Freeman in the WSJ.

From the U.S. Census Bureau:

  • The official poverty rate in 2018 was 11.8%, a decrease of 0.5 percentage points from 2017. This is the fourth consecutive annual decline in the national poverty rate.
  • In 2018, for the first time in 11 years, the official poverty rate was significantly lower than 2007, the year before the most recent recession.
  • The number of people in poverty in 2018 was 38.1 million, 1.4 million fewer people than 2017.

More Full-Time Workers

  • Between 2017 and 2018, the real median earnings of all workers increased 3.4% to $40,247.
  • The number of full-time, year-round workers increased by 2.3 million, between 2017 and 2018.
  • The number of men and women full-time, year-round workers increased by about 700,000 and 1.6 million, respectively.

Meanwhile, Mr. Freeman wonders, will Democratic presidential candidates “remain obsessed with income inequality amid evidence that it’s been declining in the Trump era?”

Read more here.

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Debbie Young

Debbie, editor-in-chief of Richardcyoung.com, has been associate editor of Dick Young’s investment strategy reports for over three decades. When not in Key West, Debbie spends her free time researching and writing in and about Paris and Burgundy, France, cooking on her AGA Cooker, driving her Porsche Boxter S through Vermont and Maine, and practicing yoga.