Older Americans may have higher incomes than previously thought, according to new experimental data that's being developed by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Bureau this week published the first estimates from its National Experimental Wellbeing Statistics or NEWS, a project that aims to fix measurement errors in income and poverty data. The initial study looked at 2018 numbers, and the research team plans to extend the analysis to other years.
One key finding: Among householders aged 65 and over, the median income was estimated to be 27% higher than in the bureau's previous analysis — and the poverty rate 3.3 percentage points lower.
The change for other age groups was smaller. Still, the general trend was to revise incomes up for older households, and revise them down for younger ones — widening the generational gap.
What's more, since the 65-and-over cohort accounts for a sizeable chunk of the population, the shift is big enough to impact some widely watched numbers for the overall population. Median income for all Americans in 2018 was 6.3% higher — equivalent to some $4,000 — in the new measurements than the old ones, and the nationwide poverty rate was 1.1 percentage points lower.
