According to a report from the Census Bureau yesterday, real median household income in the United States fell 3.6 percent between 2007 and 2008, from $52,163 to $50,303.
So if you feel poorer these days, the odds are you have plenty of company.
That move lower broke a string of three years of annual increases and coincides neatly with the recession that started in December 2007.
On top of that, the report also shows the nation's official poverty rate in 2008 was 13.2 percent, up from 12.5 percent in 2007. That left 39.8 million people below the poverty line in 2008, up from 37.3 million in 2007.
That, needless to say, is something of a headwind blowing in the face of a housing rebound since the cost of a home is now tightly linked again to incomes.
You can't buy what you can't borrow. It's as simple as that.
Meanwhile, the wave of troubles homeowners continues to build. After all incomes matter.
From RealtyTrac entitled: Foreclosure Activity Remains Near Record Level in August According to RealtyTrac(R) U.S. Foreclosure Market Report
"IRVINE, Calif., Sept. 10 /PRNewswire/ — RealtyTrac(R) (www.realtytrac.com), the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its August 2009 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report(TM), which shows foreclosure filings - default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions - were reported on 358,471 U.S. properties during the month, a decrease of less than 1 percent from the previous month but still an increase of nearly 18 percent from August 2008. The report also shows one in every 357 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing in August.
"The August report demonstrates that there is still an ample supply of properties filling the foreclosure pipeline even while the outflow of bank-owned REO properties onto the resale market is being more carefully regulated," said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. "After hitting a high for the year in July, REOs dropped 13 percent in August, but we also saw a record high number of properties either entering default or being scheduled for a public foreclosure auction for the first time."
With one in every 62 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing in August, Nevada continued to document the nation's highest state foreclosure rate despite an 8 percent decrease in foreclosure activity from the previous month. A total of 17,902 Nevada properties received a foreclosure filing during the month, still an increase of 53 percent from August 2008.
Florida documented the nation's second highest state foreclosure rate, with one in every 140 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing, and California documented the nation's third highest state foreclosure rate, with one in every 144 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing.
A 10 percent month-to-month decrease in foreclosure activity helped lower Arizona's foreclosure rate from the nation's third highest in July to fourth highest in August. One in every 150 Arizona housing units received a foreclosure filing in August - still more than twice the national average.
Other states with foreclosure rates ranking among the nation's 10 highest were Michigan, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Georgia and Illinois."
The bottom in housing is nowhere in sight.
Of course, the larger question is this.....Just how much more blood do they really think they can squeeze from this stone?
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