Busheconomics

Family incomes dropped 2.3% 2001-2004, Fed says The average income of American families, after adjusting for inflation, declined 2.3% in 2004 compared with 2001 while their net worth rose but at a slower pace. The Federal Reserve reported Thursday that the drop in inflation-adjusted incomes left the average family income at $70,700 in 2004. The median, or point where half the families earned more and half less, did rise slightly in 2004 after adjusting for inflation to $43,200, up 1.6% from the 2001 level. (1.6% in three years!) The median, or midpoint for net worth rose 1.5% to $93,100 from 2001 to 2004. That growth was far below the 10.3% gain in median net worth from 1998 to 2001, a period when the stock market reached record highs before starting to decline in early 2000. (1998-2001, The good old days of Bill Clinton) The Fed's results were published in the 2004 Survey of Consumer Finances, a document that provides a comprehensive view of how Americans are faring on such pocketbook issues as incomes and net worth. (Related: Full report.) The Bush administration and Republican economic policies have been a disaster to working men and women in the five years of these incompetent morons. Families are earning less and paying far more for everything. For the first time since 1990 (Hmmm-who was president then?) real wages have gone down two consecutive years. Families are struggling under Bush and Republican policies and it won't get better until the country rids itself of them.