For everybody wondering why the economic recovery feels like a recession, here’s the answer: We’re still at least five years away from regaining everything lost during the 2007-2009 downturn.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/this-is-why-the-middle-class-is-still-reeling-170441453.html
Even though the recession officially ended in 2009, median household income declined until 2012 (which suggests maybe we ought to reconsider the way we define recessions). The total decline from the peak in 2007 to the bottom in 2012 was 8.3%. For a family earning $50,000, that means they would have been getting by on $4,150 less per year.
There's been a small uptick in incomes since 2012, but we're not even close to digging out of the crater caused by the recession. Census data going back to 1967 shows that to be the biggest drop in any recession, and the same probably holds true going all the way back to 1940. The second-worst drop in inflation-adjusted income was 6%, from a peak in 1979 to a bottom in 1983. This chart shows the trend (numbers after 2013 are projections):
(Article does continue. Zim.)
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