Thus, in a period of unprecedented corporate profits and rising worker productivity— up 2.5 percent per year during the 2000s— most working Americans experienced either stagnant real income or a fall in real income during the Bush presidency. Census Bureau numbers showed that the median household income for working-age households fell, in 2007 dollars, by $2,010 in the years from 2000 to 2007, the only economic cycle on record in which real income for American workers has fallen. For racial minorities, the trend was even worse: median income for blacks declined by over 5 percent during these years; for Hispanics the decline was 3.1 percent.

At the same time, the percentage of Americans,

living below the poverty line steadily rose.

Bob

Pollin came up with a disturbing estimate

by the end of the Bush presidency, fully one in three American workers was earning below his living-wage benchmark.