Yesterday's U.S. Census Bureau figures gave us a shocking dose of reality: Your family lost $7,000 from 2000 to 2012. 

Blogger Richard (R.J.) Eskow from Campaign for America's Future pointed out that on average, most median income families lost even more than that: $7,490. 

He writes, "That’s $624 per month. $144 per week. $20 per day."

Middle-class incomes in Michigan fell between 1979 and 2007, even though the state's overall economy grew. A new study from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows that over the past three decades, Michigan’s middle-class workers did worse than middle-class U.S. workers in general because collective bargaining had eroded more in Michigan than in the rest of the country. 

New figures from the U.S. Census Bureau today show that the middle class received the smallest share of the nation’s income since these data were first reported. The middle 60 percent of households received only 45.7 percent of the nation’s income in 2011, down from the historical peak of 53.2 percent in 1968. But writers David Madland and Nick Bunker at the Center for American Progress Action Fund say:

By advancing the interests of the middle class in the workplace and in our democracy, unions help build and strengthen the middle class.

The vast majority of America's workers have largely been shut out of the nation’s economic growth over the past three decades, reports the 12th edition of The State of Working America from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Released today and available online, the report finds that the typical American family has added hundreds of extra hours of work each year, while also earning better education credentials, yet is still struggling to keep up.

Several new economic reports out in time for Labor Day point to long-term trends that are driving a declining standard of living for America’s middle- and low-income workers. Here’s a quick summary (click on chart to expand).

Young worker households—those between ages 35 and 44 and age 35 and younger—saw the steepest drop in their net worth between 2007 and 2010, according to an Economic Policy Institute (EPI) analysis of last week's Federal Reserve report.

More troubling news on the downward economic spiral of America’s working families. In 2010, median household income declined and the poverty rate increased, according to U.S. Census Bureau data announced this morning.