Real Median Household Income · Arkansas

## What this measures

The median annual money income of households in Arkansas, adjusted for inflation into dollars of the newest income year, exactly as the Census Bureau publishes it in historical Table H-8 (Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement). Census adjusts with the chained CPI-U from 2000 and the CPI-U-RS before. Annual, from 1984.

## Why it matters

Adjusted for prices, it shows whether a typical household in the state is better or worse off than before, and how the state compares with others over decades.

## How to read it

Dollars of the year the unit names; Census restates the whole series each September in the newest year's dollars. Compare with the U.S. series (fred_real_median_household_income) and with the current-dollar series (us.state.ar.median_household_income).

## What it does not say

CPS state samples are small, so single-year state medians carry wide margins of error (Census publishes a standard error with each), and a state's rank can move on noise. Census recommends comparing states on multi-year averages or the American Community Survey. Incomes are money income before taxes, without non-cash benefits or capital gains. Some years carry methodology breaks Census footnotes: 2013 is the redesigned-questions estimate, 2017 the updated-processing estimate, and later years new population controls. The inflation adjustment uses national prices, so it does not capture differences in living costs between states.

## Source

U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC), historical income Table H-8. Public domain.