The BLS has released the latest Real Earnings Report.
Real average hourly earnings for all employees increased 0.3 percent from April to May, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This result stems from an increase of 0.3 percent in average hourly earnings combined with an increase of 0.1 percent in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U).
Real average weekly earnings decreased 0.1 percent over the month due to the change in real average hourly earnings combined with a 0.3-percent decrease in the average workweek.
Generally speaking, real income growth has about matched pre-Covid, per the graphs below.
But first, a few notes...
- These hourly and weekly figures are in 1982~1984 dollars, so that inflationary impact can be easily seen. The $11.03 per hour in the first graph would be $33.34 per hour in today's dollars.
- Much is made about the decrease in hourly wages, but some easy explanation... We can all remember when covid shut everything down, and people were sent home. Some kept working at their jobsite or from home.
- Many others went home without a job. A lot of those were lower wage employees, which skewed the hourly and weekly rates upward, until those employees slowly returned to work.
- I have January, 2020 (pre-covid) on each graph, so that comparisons can be made to current. Also, the unemployment rate then and now are very similar.
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