The median household income, a key measure of financial health for most people, crept up in North Carolina in 2005, mirroring a national trend that saw the median income rise 1.1 percent.

But North Carolina still hasn't recovered from the economic flameout of five years ago. Between 2000 and 2005, median household income in North Carolina fell from $43,537 to $41,584, when adjusted for inflation, according to U.S. Census data released Tuesday.

It's as if we've been getting pay cuts all those years.

Carol Oldick doesn't need the government statistics to tell her what she sees with every paycheck.

The 64-year-old Rocky Mount resident works full time selling furniture at the Carolina Clearinghouse furniture store in Raleigh to supplement her Social Security check.

But the furniture shoppers on whom she depends for her commission-only paychecks are struggling with the same economy and cutting spending. And that cuts into Oldick's pay.

Oldick and her husband, a truck driver, are considering canceling a dream trip to Hawaii -- what would be their first vacation in five years -- because money is tight. In May, she traded in her beloved Dodge pickup truck for a fuel-stingy Toyota Scion to contend with rising gas prices.

And as vacations and other purchases are put off, the financial pain is passed down the line.

Economists say the good times simply aren't trickling down to everyone, but contend that the rising household income rates show that North Carolina is clearly in an economic turnaround.

"A lot of jobs we're adding are software, technology, health care and education, which are very high paying," said John Silvia, the chief economist at Wachovia in Charlotte. "We've become more competitive in those things that have a higher value added."

Still, recovery has been uneven across the state and even in the Triangle. For instance, between 2004 and 2005, the median household income, when adjusted for inflation, dropped in the Triangle. But in Wake County, it went up -- by $51 dollars, a statistically insignificant amount, to $57,284, according to the census. But the Census Bureau cautioned that the local measures are based on a different survey and not directly comparable to the improving statewide numbers.

The reasons for the sluggish performance are numerous. Median individual earnings in the Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill area slipped 4.6 percent last year to $31,007, after adjustment for inflation. Since 2000, individual earnings in the area have fallen 14 percent, when adjusted for inflation. Other factors include: waves of layoffs among technology companies and other businesses, fierce competition globally, and outsourcing. All have contributed to making businesses more efficient but employees less prosperous.

Prospects dimmed for Raleigh resident GiGi Brueck three and a half years ago, when her husband's family business was forced to shut down.

The company made components for electronic cables, but couldn't compete with low bids from competitors who outsourced jobs.

As a result, the household income for the family of six dropped by about $1,200 a month.

Brueck works as a nurse, and her husband has since found work as a contractor, but that work is less reliable, she said.

"It just depends on what they have coming in," she said.

The family has had to scrimp, putting off planned home improvements and skipping new cars.

"Everything goes to groceries, mortgage and basic living," Brueck said. "We don't have a whole lot in savings. My 16-year-old doesn't have a car."

Brueck said she believes the gap between the wealthy and the poor is widening.

"There's either these $400,000 houses or the middle class," she said.

In North Carolina, 12 percent of households make more than $100,000 a year.

The wealth disparity is what accounts for the dissonance between upbeat employment reports and beat-up median household income figures, said Duke University finance professor Campbell Harvey. By averaging the super rich in the nation's economic stew, we get a much more intense flavor.

But by taking a median measure -- that is, the person in the middle -- the economic reading is not skewed in favor of the wealthy few.

"The people that are well off have done well," Harvey said. "They're a small group that makes an enormous amount of money. It takes an enormous amount of average Americans to equal one of these people."

(Staff researcher Paulette Stiles contributed to this report.)

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