5 states’ residents got richer, but 17 states’ got poorer, new Census data shows

Alix Martichoux
·2 min read

(NEXSTAR) – 2022 was a rough year for many Americans, newly released U.S. Census Bureau data indicates.

While the median household income climbed in five states, far more saw that metric drop last year. Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin all saw household income take a dip in 2022.

Nationwide, the median household income was $74,755 in 2022 – nearly 1% lower than the year before when you account for inflation. Income inequality also increased.

Alabama, Alaska, Delaware, Florida, and Utah were the lucky five states where the median family saw income grow.

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The other 28 states, plus Puerto Rico and D.C., didn’t see a statistically significant change, according to the Census Bureau.

The nation’s capital got the honor of having the highest median household in the country: $101,027. Mississippi, where the median household took home $52,719 last year, had the lowest of any state. Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, had a median household income of $24,112.

While the overall poverty rate didn’t increase in any single U.S. state, the poverty rate for children and for those 65 and older did go up in many places as coronavirus pandemic-era government benefits expired and inflation kept rising.

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In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which started in 2020, the federal government expanded the child tax credit and sent payments to people who had suffered from the pandemic, lowering poverty measures in 2021. The expansion of the child tax credit expired at the end of 2021, and other pandemic-related benefits have expired within the past year.

As a result, the supplemental poverty measure rate for children jumped 7.2 percentage points to 12.4% in 2022, according to the Census Bureau.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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