Between June 2009, when the recession officially ended, and June
2011, inflation-adjusted median household income fell 6.7%, to
$49,909, according to a study by two former Census Bureau
officials. During the recession — from December 2007 to June
2009 — household income fell 3.2%. The finding helps explain
why Americans’ attitudes toward the economy, the country’s
direction and its political leaders have continued to sour even
as the economy has been growing. Unhappiness and anger have come
to dominate the political scene, including the early stages of
the 2012 presidential campaign. The full 9.8% drop in income
from the start of the recession to this June — the most recent
month in the study — appears to be the largest in several
decades, according to other Census Bureau data. Gordon W. Green
Jr., who wrote the report with John F. Coder, called the decline
“a significant reduction in the American standard of living.”
That reduction occurred even though the unemployment rate fell
slightly, to 9.2% in June compared with 9.5% two years earlier.
Two main forces appear to have held down pay: the number of
people outside the labor force — neither working nor looking
for work — has risen; and the hourly pay of employed people has
failed to keep pace with inflation, as the prices of oil products
and many foods have jumped. The new study by Mr. Green and Mr.
Coder is based on monthly census surveys, rather than the annual
data that appeared in last month’s census report on income. The
monthly figures allow researchers to measure income changes more
precisely during a recession or a recovery and provide more
current information.

In their new study, Mr. Green and Mr. Coder found that income
dropped more, in percentage terms, for some groups already making
less, a factor that they say may have contributed to rising
income inequality. From June 2007 to June of this year, they
said, median annual household income declined by 7.8% for
non-Hispanic whites, to $56,320, and by 6.8% for Hispanics, to
$39,901. For blacks, household income declined 9.2%, to $31,784.
Income, after adjustment for inflation, declined fairly
substantially for households headed by people under age 62, but
it rose 4.7% for those headed by people 65 to 74, many of whom
are not in the labor force. The change was negligible for those
62 to 64. The type of employment also made a difference. Real
median annual income declined to a similar degree for households
headed by private-sector wage workers (4.3%) and
government-sector workers (3.9%), but fell much more for the
self-employed (12.3%). Family households generally had larger
declines in real income than other households. Men living alone
showed a bigger decline than women living alone. Education
levels were also a factor. Median annual income declined most for
households headed by someone with an associate’s degree,
dropping 14%, to $53,195, in the four-year period that ended in
June 2011, the report said. For households headed by people who
had not completed high school, median income declined by 7.9%, to
$25,157. For those with a bachelor’s degree or more, income
declined by 6.8%, to $82,846.

Republicans blame Mr. Obama for the slump, saying he has issued a
blizzard of regulations and promised future tax increases that
have hurt business and consumer confidence. Those arguments may
be heard repeatedly this week, as the Senate begins debating the
jobs bill. The full bill — a mix of tax cuts, public works,
unemployment benefits and other items, costing $447 billion —
is unlikely to pass, but individual parts seem to have a
significant chance.

Housing industry jobs down

The housing industry lost 5,700 jobs in September, marking its
fourth consecutive month of employment shrinkage, preliminary
figures from the Department of Labor show. Residential building
employment rose by 1,800, but was offset by 7,500 job losses in
the real estate industry, according to seasonally adjusted data
from the Labor Department. Given the housing crash and the
market's current anemic performance, it's hard to expect industry
employment to do anything but move sideways for a while, said
Paul Dales, senior US economist with Capital Economics, a
Toronto-based research consultancy.

The numbers bear out his point, as housing industry employment
started to flatten out last year and has remained fairly steady
since then. "If you go back and look at how many people were
employed in those sectors two years or even four years ago, there
would have been a hell of a lot more people employed," Dales
said. "Any industry that’s been exposed to the housing market
has really seen a lot of job losses over the last few years."
The ranks of mortgage brokers are also continuing to thin out.
Employment among mortgage and non-mortgage loan brokers declined
by 1,500 in September, although that data was not adjusted for
seasonal variations, which are substantial in the housing
industry. The trend, though, is clear. The mortgage loan
brokerage industry has lost more than 100,000 jobs since
employment peaked at 148,200 in April 2006, Labor Department data
shows. Employment in September was 47,400, according to the
Department's preliminary estimate. "These industries have
suffered a lot and they’ll probably continue to suffer," said
Dales.