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The 2010s are about to come to a close, and America has changed a lot over the last 10 years.
At the start of the decade, the economy was just coming out of the depths of the Great Recession, when millions of Americans lost their jobs and homes after a housing market crash and financial crisis between 2007 and 2009. As the 2010s come to a close, a decade of more-or-less steady economic growth has slowly but surely brought unemployment to its lowest point in decades.
America has become larger, more prosperous, better educated, and more diverse. As we wait to see what the 2020s have in store, here are 10 charts that show how America's economy and population have changed since 2010:
America's population has steadily grown over the decade.
In 2010, the Census Bureau counted about 309 million Americans, rising to an estimated 327 million in 2018, the most recent year for which estimates are available.
The 2010s were a decade of economic recovery.
After the darkest days of the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009, gross domestic product, a broad measure of overall economic activity, grew at a steady rate throughout the decade.
The labor market has also steadily improved over the decade.
Unemployment was as high as 10% in 2010 in the wake of the recession, and has declined to its current level below 4%.
Job growth, another key metric of the labor market, has also been steady throughout the decade.
The US is currently enjoying a record 110-month-long streak of net monthly job creation.
Average hourly wage growth was low in the wake of the recession, but has begun accelerating more recently.
However, wage growth remains weaker than many economists would have expected given low unemployment and continued strong job growth.
Similarly to wages, total income growth for the typical household was mostly flat through the first half of the decade, but has accelerated over the last few years.
Adjusted for inflation, the typical household's income was about 11% higher in 2018 than in 2010.
Americans have continued a decades-long pattern of becoming more educated.
The share of people age 25 and over with at least four years of college rose from about 30% in 2010 to 35% in 2018.
That increased level of education has come with a price, however, as student debt levels have nearly doubled since the start of the decade.
