Real Average Wages

On the rise:

Figure 1: Real average earnings for production and non-supervisory workers, CPI deflated (blue), chained CPI deflated (tan), both in 2023$. Chained CPI seasonally adjusted by author using X-13 (in logs). Source: BLS via FRED and author’s calculations.

It’s appropriate to ask what’s happening to the median wage. I don’t have the levels, but I have median year-on-year growth from the Atlanta Fed. Using this data, I get the following for real median wage growth:

Figure 2: Median year-on-year wage growth, adjusted by CPI (blue). Median wage growth is 3 month moving average over 12 months prior. Source: Atlanta Fed via FRED (series FRBATLWGT3MMAUMHWGO), BLS, and author’s calculations.

 

27 thoughts on “Real Average Wages

  1. pgl

    Thanks for doing this as Antoni and his MAGA fan base are cherry picking start and end dates to claim real wages are down.

    One question – could this graph be taken back to pre-pandemic?

  2. pgl

    https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/DJT/

    Trump Media stock down to $16.08 a share. I guess his story about immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio is not boosting his share price.

    BTW – look up the history of this town as they have race riots before. Maybe Trump’s plan is to have all non-white potential voters killed.

  3. Macroduck

    Truth Social market valuation story from Barron’s:

    https://www.barrons.com/articles/trump-media-stock-djt-truth-social-8f0cb6d6

    Unfortunately, the writing doesn’t answer questions it raises. The article states that Trump’s “post-merger gains” evaporate at around $13 per share. DJT closed Thursday at just over $16. Dandy, but how much skin did Trump have in Trump Media before the merger? It would be great if he doesn’t get a dime out of the merger, but I want to know whether he has any gains from Truth Social at all. I don’t want him walking away with a billion, which is what is kind of implied, by not stated plainly. The writer didn’t work hard enough on this one.

    1. pgl

      This is actually an OECD proposal called Pillar Two. Biden wants to go along with this sensible idea but Republicans hate it. Go figure.

  4. pgl

    In case you are wondering where JD Vance and Trump got this vile racist claim about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio eat pet dogs and cats.

    Neo-Nazis were recently in Springfield. Will they come to Columbus ahead of 2024 election?
    https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2024/09/10/neo-nazis-hate-groups-and-extremists-target-ohio-november-election/74968949007/

    Neo-Nazis already appeared about 48 miles west of Columbus to protest in Springfield in August. Given Columbus’ liberal politics in a right-leaning state, central Ohioans should expect to see demonstrations by hate groups locally this fall, said Jeff Tischauser, senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)…They include the Nazi Blood Tribe, which launched an Ohio chapter last year, as well as several white nationalist groups, five chapters of the Proud Boys, a few anti-LGBTQ+ groups, and 21 militias or antigovernment organizations.

    A Neo-Nazi group called Blood Tribe.

    Trump right now is saying he will deport all of Springfield’s immigrants to Venezuela. Wait, I thought they were from Haiti.

  5. pgl

    Kevin Drum opens a post with this news:

    The BLS released its August report on import prices today. They were down 0.3%, or 3.7% on an annualized basis.

    https://jabberwocking.com/the-price-of-imported-goods-continues-to-plummet/
    The price of imported goods continues to plummet

    What’s interesting is his diagram of relative import prices which by his measure are only 62% of what they were in 1990. Two questions: (1) does this calculation make sense and if not what would; and (2) what has driven relative import prices over the past 34 years?

  6. pgl

    ‘No place in America’: Biden says narrative about Haitian immigrants ‘simply wrong’
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/no-place-in-america-biden-says-narrative-about-haitian-immigrants-simply-wrong/ar-AA1qxdPD?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=31792c19ccb1496e9cbe2fb4cde4c935&ei=11

    ‘President Joe Biden weighed in Friday on unsubstantiated claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are abducting and eating cats and dogs, saying the narrative is “simply wrong” and has “no place in America.” “This has to stop, what he’s doing. It has to stop,” he added, referring to former President Donald Trump.’

    It is high time that President Biden weighs in this way. Of course we know flaming racists like Trump and Vance will not stop.

  7. Moses Herzog

    We don’t talk a lot about gambling or wagering on this website (and when we do, it usually relates to politics). I am going to tell you folks, there is an interesting game this weekend, around 2:30pm Saturday. Tulane is getting 13.5 points in the spread against Oklahoma. Truth is I would take Tulane to win that game in a “straight-up” bet. “Straight up” bet means I would take Tulane just to flat out win the game, and not considering gambling spreads. But considering Tulane is getting the extra 13.5 points, I doubt you will see this kind of “free money” passed out in any other football game, pro or college this season. So, if you’re in Vegas this early part of the weekend, think about it.

    Your degenerate and jaded Uncle Moses, always looking out for you.

    1. pgl

      To gamble or not is one’s personal choice. Personally, I choose not to. I would not mind others doing so but damn it – ESPN has gone off the effing rails promoting gambling. It is gotten to the point that I change the channel when they have their Fan Duel trolls on. But no – I am not switching over to Faux News.

      1. baffling

        I have to agree that espn got into bed with the devil by allowing all of the gambling material to appear on its website. gambling and sports have always been a problem. but espn has gone out of its way to normalize that relationship.

      2. Moses Herzog

        I feel roughly the same way about gambling as I do about investing (speaking on a very personal level, not the damages gambling does to society and families etc) I feel investing and predicting things beforehand is a great way to prove one’s knowledge or maybe the homework they have done on any topic. And I think I have been better than average over the years. And I am not above being vain from time to time, so I like to flex my muscles here and there. Of course there”s a decent chance to be embarrassed, just like I could have looked like a supreme fool saying Russia would invade northern/eastern Ukraine. But I did predict it and it happened. I didn’t see that as a “amazing” or stupefying” prediction. I saw it as blatantly obvious at the time. Just as I see Tulane beating a 13.5 point spread as a VERY obvious prediction. I don’t like to be wrong or seen as a fool—even if I am, as Menzie sometimes points out, anonymous.

          1. Moses Herzog

            Yes, wrong is wrong and a person still would have lost their money. But OU had a 5 point lead with 6 minutes and 15 seconds left. 15 point loss on a 13.5 point spread. I can’t help it if the Tulane coach decided he was play-calling the Harlem Globetrotters, on a drive that would have put Tulane 2 points up with about 4 minutes left against an offense that has been plagued by 3rd down and long for the entire season. No coach of reason calls a pass play over the middle of the field in that situation.

    1. Baffling

      He says he is not selling. Based on that public statement, what are the ramifications if he does sell and simply used that statement to prop up the price of the stock short term? If he has sec violations it goes away if elected president. If not elected, is he treated like martha stewart?

  8. Macroduck

    Politico.com tells us that there is a “new” plan among “new” conservative elitists to rise to power by pandering to the masses with crass populist rhetoric, then betray them:

    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/09/13/jd-vance-new-right-political-movement-00177203

    JD Vance, in this story, is the cynical charismatic who can serve as the elitist emissary to the aggrieved masses.

    Hold the phone…New? Nixon’s Southern strategy. Reagan as the charismatic who can bring in populist votes while betraying the interests of his own supporters. There is a serious ignorance of history in this reading of what the “new right” is up to.

    One big difference between then and now in the politics of the right is that then, Goldwater was the face of the movement. He was a true reactionary with no appreciation that his unvarnished thoughts lacked appeal. Now, Trump is the face of the movement. He has no real principles, and is perfectly aware that the true conservative agenda isn’t appealing to the Republican base.

    Other than that obvious difference, one which Vance is assumed to be ableto bridge, the story hasn’t changed. The GOP has an elitist core and a populist base, both of which want to impose a way of life upon the political center and left which the center and left don’t want.

    No new ideas here. Just new faces, and a journalist with a poor grasp of his subject matter.

    1. Moses Herzog

      Politico is usually on the ball and ahead of the pack. Hope this isn’t indicative of a backslide, ‘cuz they are one of my go-to sources.

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