Series

Motio Research produces a monthly series of U.S. household income using microdata from the Current Population Survey, the nation’s primary monthly labor force survey.

The series is designed to answer a simple but important question: how is the economic well-being of U.S. households changing over time?

Official household income estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau are released once per year in September and refer to the previous calendar year. Motio’s monthly series provides a more timely view by using income information collected in the monthly CPS.

Our approach builds on the past work of Sentier Research, which first showed that monthly CPS data could be used to produce reliable estimates of median household income. Motio follows the core logic of that approach while incorporating refinements designed to improve stability, consistency, and comparability over time.

Each monthly estimate reflects household income reported over the prior twelve months. Because of the CPS sample design, the estimates should be understood as rolling measures of annual household income.

In broad terms, our process involves converting reported income ranges into estimated household income values, applying CPS household weights, adjusting for inflation to produce real income measures, aligning the series with official Census benchmarks, and seasonally adjusting the data to make changes over time easier to interpret.

Our main public series is shown as a three-month moving average. This reduces short-term volatility and helps users focus on the most meaningful signals: the level, direction, and momentum of U.S. household income on a monthly basis.