Median household income in the U.S. rose to ticked upward to $58,419 in August 2017, up slightly from our previous estimate of $58,340 for July 2017. The following chart shows our estimates for the trends for both nominal and inflation-adjusted median household from January 2000 through August 2017.

(Click on image to enlarge)

In terms of current U.S. dollars, the most recent trend for median household income in the U.S. has been slowly rising since January 2017. However, after adjusting the nominal income data to be in terms of inflation-adjusted, constant August 2017 U.S. dollars, we can see that since January 2017 has trended flat after having slowly declined from its most recent "real" peak at the beginning of 2016. Our estimates of median household income since January 2000 indicate that this measure of the well-being of the typical American household has not recovered to the peak levels recorded in either late 2000 with the peak of the Dot-Com Bubble or the peak that was reached during the Great Recession that coincided with the failures in the U.S. automotive and financial industries in the last quarter of 2008.

The methodology for the approach we've developed to generate these replacement estimates is described here. In generating inflation-adjusted portion of the Median Household Income in the 21st Century chart above, we've used the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) to adjust the nominal median household income estimates for inflation.