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Show U. S. Income Level Shows Sharp Jump Over Pre-Var Era Figures compiled by leading Government sources on the changing pattern of personal income in-come and its distribution in recent re-cent years provide evidence of marked progress made since prewar pre-war in raising the income levels, and hence the living standards of a large part of the American poplation. A comprehensive study of the money income of the nation's 46.7 million families and individuals indi-viduals in 1948, made public recently by the Bureau of the Census, placed a substantial majority ma-jority two-thirds of the total to be exact in the middle and upper up-per income brackets. Half of the families and individuals combined com-bined was in the $2,000 - $5,000 a year income group, and 17 per ' cent more had incomes of $5,000 a year and more. This left a third of the combined total with money incomes of under $2,000 a year. There were proportionally pro-portionally more single individuals individ-uals than families in this income group in relation to the total number in each division. No comparable data of this type are available for prewar. However, an indication of the improvement that has taken place Is to be found in wage and salary income comparisons for persons 14 years of age and over ov-er for 1948 and 1939. |