The old saying still applies, as we are now leaning hard into the 2026 election season: "It's the economy, stupid." Indeed, people do vote their pocketbooks, and economic concerns are a major factor in every election.
On Wednesday, some news from the U.S. Census Bureau should have some Republicans in Congress and in the Trump administration smiling just a little bit; in 2025, according to the report, real median household income rose in 2025, while poverty fell. That's good news.
Americans’ inflation-adjusted incomes rose and poverty declined in 2025, according to new Census Bureau data released Tuesday, as the Federal Reserve meets to decide whether inflation still requires higher interest rates.
Real median household income rose by 2.6% to $87,460 last year, the Census Bureau reported as part of a suite of data releases Tuesday. The poverty rate fell by a nearly half-point to 10.2%. The poverty threshold for a family of four last year was $32,970.
Granted, that's 2025; these reports don't assemble themselves overnight, and it will not be until well after the 2026 midterm elections that we get an update. These indications are good - but there's one problem remaining: Fuel prices.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent celebrated the data, which were released as he was testifying to a House committee about the economy. The Census Bureau data are “several inconvenient facts” for the Trump administration’s political opponents, he said.
Democrats used the committee hearing to assail Bessent over high gas prices and other economic strains. The average rate for new 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose above 7% last week. Prices increases by 3.4% in August from the year before, as measured by consumer price index.
The numbers remain better than at the midpoint of the Biden administration.
Here's the onion: The two parties measure success in this arena very differently. Take the social welfare policies around the poverty rate discussion; the census report notes that SNAP enrollment, for example, has dropped and is expected to drop further as 1) the economy continues to rebound, and 2) tightened standards and the crackdown on fraud takes effect. But while the Left judges the success of these programs by how many people are enrolled - and mind you, the left doesn't care too much about the enrollees being citizens or ever in the country legally - the right judges success by the number of people who no longer need them. And that would seem to be what's happening.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that spending on food stamps, known as SNAP, will fall by $211 billion through 2035 years as a result of the law because fewer people will be eligible for nutrition assistance.
Gas, diesel, home heating oil, and natural gas prices will be a major factor in these midterm elections, and yes, they are expensive right now, in large part because of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. But this census report has given Republican candidates a counter: Tangible, quantifiable measures of success in the economy, delivered by a Republican Congress and a Republican administration. That's not just a talking point. These are facts. This is hard data. And facts, as we regularly point out, are stubborn things.
This is the message.
You can see the report from the Census Bureau along with their data here.