American Enterprise Institute

Money Moves

Institutional home of Mark Perry and the Chart of the Century

For decades, economists have argued over whether life is getting more affordable. A new analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data from 2000 to 2025 shows that while the Consumer Price Index rose 92.6%, average hourly wages climbed 131.1%.

Updated 6 days ago

Rule Changes

Critic of SPM methodology and threshold calculations

The Census Bureau announced on September 9, 2025 that poverty fell to 10.6% in 2024—the lowest in years and proof, officials said, that the economy was lifting Americans up. But buried in the same report: a different poverty measure showed 12.9% of Americans struggling, with no improvement at all, same country, same year, two completely different stories about who's hurting.

Updated May 20

Money Moves

Employer of co-author Corinth; co-published a non-technical summary

American millennials at ages 36 to 40 earn 20 percent more in real household income than Generation X did at the same age. That finding, published April 24 in the journal Demography, contradicts a decade of writing that argued each new generation was losing ground.

Updated Apr 26