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August 7, 2026 / 9:44 AM EDT
/ CBS News
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The typical American's paycheck has grown faster since 2019 than in any stretch since the early 1980s. Most of it didn't stick.A CBS News analysis of Census data found the typical full-time worker earned $1,250 a week in the first half of 2026. That's up $342 from the year before the pandemic, a raise of 38%.But prices climbed nearly as fast. Consumer costs rose 30% over the same seven years, swallowing about 80% of the typical worker's raise. What survives is roughly $70 more a week to spend in today's dollars. That's about 6% over seven years or a gain of less than 1% a year.Over seven years, $70 more a week is a small gain placed in the context of a typical family's budget: about one gasoline fill-up for an SUV or less than one-third of a single week's grocery run for a cost-conscious family of four.That gap explains a contradiction millions of households felt across the Trump, Biden and second Trump administrations: raises that never seemed to change the household budget.Inflation peaked in June 2022, when prices jumped 9% over the prior year, the sharpest increase since 1981.The gains were not evenly shared. Across the occupations CBS News could measure reliably, roughly half of the workers beat inflation, about a quarter came out about even, and the other quarter fell behind – even if their paychecks were rising.
