“The financial well-being of Americans held relatively steady last year, even as the cost of living continued to climb.

The poverty rate was 13.1 percent in 2025, the same as in 2024, according to data released on Tuesday by the Census Bureau. Poverty for children and people over age 65 did not change, while poverty among those without a high school degree rose. The share of Americans without health insurance stayed level.

Median household income improved last year to $87,460, the highest level on record, adjusted for inflation.”

From New York Times.

“Migrants sent $728.6 billion home to families in low and middle-income countries in 2025, nearly double the amount recorded a decade earlier, according to a new report from the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

These transfers, known as remittances, grew by 94 per cent between 2016 and 2025, far outpacing the 28 per cent increase in the number of migrants from those countries.

The gap shows that growth is not simply the result of more people migrating: on average, migrants abroad are sending larger amounts home.

Some 220 million migrants and people from the diaspora support an estimated 1.1 billion relatives.”

From United Nations.

“Household incomes rose last year for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic began, reflecting the effects of easing inflation and a strong job market.

The new data from the U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday signaled an improvement in 2023 after inflation that spiked to a 40-year-high the prior year swallowed up household income gains.

Inflation-adjusted median household income was $80,610 in 2023, up 4% from the 2022 estimate of $77,540, the bureau said in its annual report card on households’ financial well-being. This move returned incomes to about where they were in 2019, the peak that was hit just before the pandemic.”

From Wall Street Journal.

“The median household net worth of older millennials, born in the 1980s, rose to $130,000 in 2022 from $60,000 in 2019, according to inflation-adjusted data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Median wealth more than quadrupled to $41,000 for Americans born in the 1990s, which includes the generation’s youngest members, born in 1996. 

The turnaround has been so dramatic that millennials—mocked at times for being perpetually behind in building wealth, buying homes, getting married and having children—now find themselves ahead.

In early 2024, millennials and older members of Gen Z had, on average and adjusting for inflation, about 25% more wealth than Gen Xers and baby boomers did at a similar age, according to a St. Louis Fed analysis.”

From Wall Street Journal.