Wages & Salaries
Minimum wage history, median household income, and average hourly earnings. The question isn't just whether prices have gone up — it's whether paychecks have kept pace. Spoiler: for many workers, they haven't.
Federal Minimum Wage
The federal minimum wage from its inception in 1938 through 2025, showing every legislated increase. The minimum wage is one of the most politically charged numbers in American economics. Set at 25 cents when FDR signed the Fair Labor Standards Act, it has been raised 22 times — but never indexed to inflation. The result is a wage floor that slowly erodes in purchasing power between each congressional bump, leaving minimum-wage workers on a financial roller coaster that depends entirely on political will.
Median Household Income
Median household income is the single best measure of how the "typical" American family is doing financially. It splits all U.S. households right down the middle — half earn more, half earn less — which makes it far more useful than averages that get skewed by billionaires at the top. Since the Census Bureau started tracking it in 1967, this number has been the go-to benchmark for politicians, economists, and anyone trying to figure out whether ordinary people are actually getting ahead or just treading water.
Average Hourly Earnings
Average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls — in plain English, this is what the average rank-and-file worker actually takes home per hour. The BLS strips out executives and managers, so you get a much clearer picture of what ordinary workers earn. This series covers roughly 80% of the private-sector workforce and has been tracked since the mid-1960s, making it one of the longest-running thermometers for working-class pay in America.
CEO Compensation
Average realized compensation for CEOs at the top 350 U.S. firms by revenue, measured in millions of dollars per year from 1978 to 2025. This figure includes salary, bonuses, stock options exercised, and other perks. CEO pay has become one of the most heated topics in the inequality debate, and for good reason — the gap between what executives take home and what typical workers earn has ballooned from about 30-to-1 in the late 1970s to well over 300-to-1 today. Stock-based pay is the biggest driver of that explosion.
Entry-Level Salaries
Average starting salary for new college graduates entering the workforce from 1990 to 2025. This is the number that matters most to anyone finishing their degree and wondering whether it was all worth it. Entry-level pay has roughly doubled in nominal terms over the past 35 years, which sounds decent until you realize that college tuition has roughly tripled over the same period. The result is that new grads today earn more on paper but often start their careers deeper in debt than any previous generation.