Editorial: Reading between the numbers

Friday, Sept. 1, 2006 | 7:17 a.m.

Recent figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show that the nation's median household income increased last year, but it did so because more people are working, not because they are earning more.

Wages, in fact, have dropped. Census figures show that the median earnings of women working full time declined by 1.3 percent last year, while the median income for men working full time declined by almost 2 percent. The rise in the median household income - the first since 1999 - is attributed to more people in each household having jobs or people holding down more than one job.

The 2005 median household income was $46,326 - meaning that half of U.S. households earned more than that and half earned less. Douglas Besharov, of the American Enterprise Institute, told USA Today that the income figure alone is misleading given the fact that individual wages for full-time workers have dropped. The economy, he said, "still is not generating the higher-paying jobs we'd like to see."

Meanwhile, economic policies championed by the Bush administration and the Republican-led House of Representatives have provided a veritable gravy train of tax credits and financial benefits for corporations and wealthy Americans.

But the latest Census Bureau figures illustrate that these benefits are not trickling down to those doing the work. Some 37 million Americans were living in poverty last year, defined as families of four that earned less than $19,971. It represents a statistically insignificant drop - from 12.7 percent to 12.6 percent - in the nation's poverty rate for 2005.

Today's households may have more money, but their occupants are working harder to earn wages that are lower and don't go as far, with rising prices for energy and other necessities. But the Bush administration has done little to respond, providing more breaks for those who are well-off and ignoring the workers who have made these corporations and their executives rich.