American workers deserve a pay raise, but they’re not going to get one

The government will tell you the typical American household brought in $83,730 last year. They will call this “median household income.” They will note it is stable.

They will present this as a fact, and in the sterile language of statistics, it is.

But walk down any Main Street in America and ask the people there about stability. They will tell you a different story.

Some will tell you that the carton of ice cream that was a half gallon, is now only one and a half quarts.

Others will say that it feels like a dozen today is equal to nine, and in many cases they would be right.

They will speak of a phantom raise, a number on a page that vanishes before it reaches the bank. They will speak of the cost.

That cost has a precise and painful figure for millions of working families: $3,960. That is what the typical working family spent out of pocket last year on health care premiums and medical bills, according to a new analysis of federal data.

For one in every eight such families, the bite was far more savage, consuming over 10% of their entire annual income.

For the most burdened tenth, the bill exceeded $14,800.

Those folks are not getting less cereal or candy. They are watching years of life vanish, as their bank balance also drops to zero.

Here lies the quiet scandal of the American present. Incomes are said to be steady, but the ground beneath them is shifting, quicksand made of deductibles and co-pays.

This plight only touches the middle half of the top part of the economic ladder and the entirety of those on the bottom.

America’s richest quarter is safe for now, but the erosion is coming for all but those in the top ten percent, or maybe the one percent. The numbers show that segment is getting richer, because our economy has been recalibrated to “add to the abundance of those who have much.”

The median income for a Black household actually fell last year, by 3.3%. Yet the cost of staying alive, of seeing a doctor or filling a prescription, races ahead of wages as reliably as a train on a track.

The machinery of this hardship is well-oiled and bipartisan.

For decades, the price of medical care has climbed faster than anything else. Employers, seeking relief, have shifted the weight onto the backs of their employees through higher premiums and skimpier plans.

The result is a cruel arithmetic: a family earning $56,000 in Mississippi and a family earning $114,000 in Massachusetts can both be one serious illness away from financial ruin, their safety nets whittled down to a fraying thread.

This is not an accident of economics; it is a choice of policy.

We have constructed a system where health is a luxury item. The data show rural families, though they pay similar medical bills, are far more likely to be burdened by them because their incomes are lower.

They show families with a high school diploma pay a larger share of their earnings than those with advanced degrees.

It is a system that meticulously translates inequality into sickness and debt.

The consequences are written in the ledgers of everyday life.

Surveys find nearly half of adults could not pay an unexpected $500 medical bill without going into debt. People skip pills, delay procedures, and avoid doctors entirely because of the cost.

This does not save money; it merely stores up greater human and financial tragedy for later, in the form of worse health and emergency room visits.

And the ledger is set to grow heavier.

Health insurance premiums are projected to rise again this year. Key subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans have expired, which could double costs for some. Changes to Medicaid will likely push more people into more expensive, skimpy private coverage.

So when you hear that the median income is stable, consider what stability means.

It means running faster to stay in the same place, while the cost of the race itself threatens to bankrupt you.

It means a national statistic that feels like a private fiction for the millions for whom a modest paycheck is just an IOU for the next doctor’s visit.

The American worker isn’t getting a raise. They are getting an invoice, and it is marked due upon receipt.

Our leaders in Washington don’t care that a top heavy tower is doomed to fall down.