Finally, some good news for middle class citizens.
America's middle class finally saw their salaries go up last year.
Median household income rose to $56,516 in 2015, up 5.2% a year earlier, according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau Tuesday. It marks the first increase in median income since 2007, the year before the Great Recession started.
The data is sure to become a talking point in the 2016 presidential election as Hillary Clinton will likely use the good date to show that the economy is recovering.
Median income was not the only bright spot in the Census release. The poverty rate ticked down to 13.5% in 2015, from 14.8% a year earlier. Some 43.1 million Americans were in poverty, 3.5 million less than in 2014.
The Census Bureau also released an alternate poverty measure that takes into account various government benefits and expenses not captured by the official poverty rate. The so-called Supplemental Poverty Measure showed 14.3% of Americans were in poverty in 2015, compared to 15.3% a year earlier.
The supplemental measure showed that non-cash public assistance, such as food stamps, housing vouchers and refundable tax credits, helped lift many Americans out of poverty. However, it also takes into account work-related costs such as transportation and child care, as well as medical and tax expenses, which all together drove more people into poverty.
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