Income Outpaces Inflation: Income Outpaces Inflation
Median family income in the United States increased faster than prices last year, and the typical household was better off than in 1972 despite inflation, the Census Bureau reported yesterday.</br></br>The bureau also said the number of Americans living below the poverty level decreased by about 15 million last, year, even though the poverty standard was adjusted upward from about $4,300 a year !to $4,540 a family of four to' jallow for inflation, i Even so, l out of every 9 Americans ÛÓ 23 million ÛÓ still 'was poor as the federal government defines that condition. Thirty per cent of all blacks were living in poverty, 1(> per cent of all elderly people, 40 per cent of black children and 14.2 per cent of all children, or 1 child out of every 7 in this land.</br></br>Prices in 1973, meanwhile, averaged 0.2 per cent above their level in 1972. Median family income, the bureau said, thus rose a little over 2 per cent in real terms or purchasing power.</br></br>At least in part, that unmas clashes with the more familiar stream of statistics the Labor Department has published over the last year, showing wages have risen less than ' prices.</br></br>Experts yesterday offered several explanations. The Census Bureau statistics measure 1973 as a whole against 1972 as a whole; the Labor Department was measuring what was going on within the year 1973. Thus prices on average, 1972 to 1973, rose 6.2 per centÛÓbut) prices within 1973, from January through December, went1 up 8.8 per cent.