Today’s release of data on family income from the Census Bureau reinforces the fact that the generation-long trend towards ever-greater income inequality seems to be firmly underway again, after only the briefest interruption caused by the Great Recession.

Several economic commentators noted the decline in income inequality (mostly driven by steep but temporary falls in income at the very top of the distribution) that accompanied the aftermath of both the early 2000s recession and the Great Recession, some even going so far as to suggest that the recessions had somehow solved the problem of rising income inequality. Yet the evidence is clear that this isn’t the case—recessions seem to only suspend the growth of inequality temporarily. This, of course, should not be a shock—declines at the top of the income distribution are driven largely by stock market movements, and the steep stock market declines of the early 2000s and 2008 bottomed out quickly, and stock prices rose relatively quickly thereafter.

Figure 1 below shows the long-run rise in family income inequality. It tracks growth in average family income by various income groupings since 1947. A key feature of this figure is the extraordinarily tight distribution of income growth from 1947 to 1979 (all lines move upward in a tight bunch), and the rapid pulling apart of income growth thereafter (the lines start pulling apart from each other).

In the earlier period, each income group below the 95^th percentile saw average annual gains between 2.2 and 2.5 percent. The top 5 percent saw average annual gains just below this, at 1.9 percent. Between 1979 and 2007 (the last pre-Great Recession year), these average annual gains ranged from 1.7 percent (for the top 5 percent) to zero for the bottom fifth of families. And looking at the far right of the graph one can see that incomes for the bottom fell during the Great Recession and continued falling through 2012.

Figure 2 below highlights how slow and uneven income growth has been since 2000, showing the change in income for groups during the full business cycle that preceded the Great Recession, as well as income changes since 2007 (the last year before the Great Recession).

The upshot of this figure is clear: income growth for the vast majority of families was either outright negative or anemic (i.e., 0.3 percent annually or less) even in the last full business cycle preceding the Great Recession. And it got worse from there, with the bottom 60 percent of the family income distribution seeing average annual incomes losses of between 1.5 percent and 2.4 percent since 2007.

A final way to demonstrate the deeply unequal fortunes of American families in recovering from recent recessions, including the Great Recession, is to examine the progress each income grouping has made in regaining their peak income level. Figure 3 shows the share of each income group’s 2013 income as a share of the highest income level they have achieved (as well as reporting when that previous peak occurred).

By 2013, average incomes for the bottom-fifth of families had only regained 84.1 percent of their previous income peak (which reached was 13 years earlier, in 2000). Average incomes for the second-fifth of families in 2013 incomes were 90.3 percent of their previous peak, reached also in 2000. Average incomes for the middle-fifth in 2013 had only reached 92.5 percent of their previous income peak, reached also in 2000. Meanwhile, average incomes for families in the fourth-fifth hit 94.4 percent of their previous income peak in 2013, which was reached in 2007. Average incomes for families in the 80^th to 95^th percentiles reached 96.9 percent of their previous peak, which was seen in 2006. And average incomes for the top 5 percent of families reached 93.5 percent of their historic income peak, reached in 2006.