THE median real household income grew by a whacking 5.2%, or $2,800, in 2015, according to figures released on September 13th. A purring labour market accounts for the bulk of the rise: that year average weekly earnings in the private-sector grew by 2.4%, while the fraction of 25- to 54-year-olds employed rose by 0.7%. Low inflation also helped. Prices rose just 0.1% in 2015, down from 1.6% growth in 2014, primarily as a result of much cheaper petrol. Janet Yellen, chairman of the Federal Reserve, recently estimated that the average household saved $780 at the pump last year.

Bucking recent trends, the wallets of the poor and least-educated swelled the most. Income at the twentieth percentile (meaning the level at which exactly one-fifth of the population earns less) grew by over 6%. The average income of households headed by someone who left school before ninth grade—typically reached at age 14 or 15— grew a fulsome 12.5%, compared with just 3.2% growth in those headed by someone with a bachelor’s degree or more. Just as the disadvantaged are usually the first to lose their jobs in a recession, they have been the last to benefit as the economy has recently closed in on full employment, argues Jared Bernstein, an economist at the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think-tank. That also helps to explain a fall in the poverty rate from 14.8% to 13.5%—the largest annual percentage-point drop in poverty since 1999.

However, there is long way to go before recent rises in inequality are undone. Real incomes for low-and-middle earners are lower than before the financial crisis, and still further beneath where they were in 2000. For the richest, they are higher on both measures (see chart). Nonetheless, Americans’ economic spirits are high. Since the start of 2015 consumer confidence has, on average, been higher than in any year since 2004. In the second quarter of 2016, real consumption per person grew at an annual pace of 3.6%. Brakes remain on economic growth: business investment is weak and productivity is falling. But workers and consumers are apparently yet to notice.