Census Bureau: Workers' median earnings climb to $40K

Workers' real median earnings increased 3.4% to $40,247 between 2017 and 2018, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report. The report, Income and Poverty in the United States: 2018, also revealed an addition of 2.3 million full-time U.S. workers for the time period. Broken down by gender, men fared better than women. 2018 real median earnings were at $55,291 for men who work full-time and $45,097 for women who work the same. Earnings increased for men by 3.4% and by 3.3% for women, the bureau said. As earnings rose slightly, the poverty rate slightly decreased. At 11.8%, the poverty rate for 2018 was down by .5% from 2017, the bureau said. For the first time in 11 years, the poverty rate was significantly lower than in 2007, the year before the country's last recession, the data showed.