The chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Jason Furman, recently wrote in the Washington Post that "Last year saw the largest single-year reduction in poverty since the 1960s."

Furman's claim is echoed by a recent Census Bureau report that showed that the typical household saw its income grow by about $2,800 - the fastest rate on record.

But while those numbers seem rosy - they are hardly enough to conclusively say that the U.S economy is healthy.

For one - the media celebrated the household income figures despite the fact that any two or more people living in the same residence are considered a "household" - and the figures don't necessarily reflect anything about personal income.

But according to Nick Buffie at the Center for Economic and Policy Research - "Income Inequality Has Gone Up Whether We Look At Households or Individuals".

Buffie writes that whether you look at personal - family - or household income, "No matter how you toy with the precise definition of income, it's clear that inequality has gone up: by all three metrics, median income growth failed to keep pace with overall growth from 1974 to 2015."