ABSTRACT
If you take some time to look at income trends in the United States, you will nd that for many people in the last few decades, the American Dream is just that: a dream. Ten million more Americans were living in poverty in 2015 compared to 1999.2 The median U.S. income in 2015 was still slightly less than the median income in 1999 (in 2015 dollars). The nancial crisis in particular hurt the poorest Americans: incomes of the bottom 10 percent of households were still lower in 2015 than they had been in 2007. Even so, there were several glimmers of hope. The Census Bureau reported that the median U.S. income grew by 5.2 percent from 2014 to 2015 to reach $56,500. The number of people without health insurance fell from 49 million in 2010 to 28 million in 2016, largely due to the Affordable Care Act.3
