Image credit: U.S. Census Bureau

Motio Research's initial estimate of U.S. median household income for November 2025 is $87,160. This estimate represents a $920 (or a little over one percent) increase over its initial $86,240 estimate for September 2025.

Because the Current Population Survey data the firm uses to generate its median household income estimates wasn't collected by the U.S. Census Bureau during the Senate Democrats' government shutdown fiasco, the firm doesn't have a solid estimate for October 2025's median household income backed by its established methodology.

The firm develops its estimates using income data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau through its monthly Current Population Survey, which is conducted during the week containing the 12th day of the month following the month in which its data applies. For the October 2025, the government shutdown blocked the Census Bureau from conducting the monthly survey because no funding had been authorized to perform it.

Motio Research however was able to impute an estimate for October 2025 in its Real Median Household Income Index, in which the median household income of January 2010 is assigned a value of 100 and the values for subsequent months are indexed with respect to that base value. The initial value of the firm's U.S. Real Median Household Income Index for October 2025 was imputed to be 119.0 while its index value for November 2025 is 119.2.

The following screenshot of Motio Research's interactive chart shows how this index has changed from January 2010 through November 2025:

(Click on image to enlarge)

The disruption of the 43-day-long federal government shutdown has posed a number of challenges for everyone who uses the government's statistics for their analyses. Many government agencies are still getting caught up, which will likely continue for several months to come.

Analyst's Notes

Political Calculations produces median household income estimates using other original data sources that complement Motio Research's survey-based estimates. The good news is we'll be able to generate solid estimates of median household income for both October and November 2025 using our alternate methodology, but the bad news is that will have to wait until the Bureau of Economic Analysis releases its aggregate wage and salary compensation data for these months on 29 January 2025.

In the meantime, we do have the ability to project what our estimates will be. We anticipate our median household income estimates will be in the ballpark of $85,314 for October 2025 and $85,606 for November 2025.

Regular readers will recall our observations that a significant gap has developed between Motio Research's estimates and ours. We have an interesting hypothesis why that is, which we'll present in a separate analysis sometime in early February 2025 after we also have the aggregate income data for December 2025.

Between now and then, we'll update this article with our estimates for October and November 2025 on or shortly after 29 January 2025.

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