Although the pandemic negatively impacted Jefferson County’s median household income, local economic experts say decreased inflation paired with people returning to the workforce will create a brighter future for everyone’s wallets.

Jefferson County’s median household income saw a 32.2% increase between 2010 and 2021 (from $41,740 to $55,210), which was just under two times the national increase of the decade, 18.7%. But between 2020 ($57,802) and 2021 ($55,210), the county’s median household income dropped around 3.5%, according to U.S Census Bureau data analyzed by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

That means Jefferson County workers were earning the same amount of money on average in 2022 as they were in 2018, despite climbing nationwide inflation over the past few years.

The rise and fall of wages was not unique to Jefferson County, according to Anoop Mishra, vice president of the Birmingham branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.