Reader JohnH confidently asserts:
Category Archives: labor market
Average Hourly Earnings, 2000-2022M02
Were wages flat during the Obama administration? Did they rise appreciably faster in the first three years of Trump (as asserted by this commentator)? 30 seconds of data retrieval reveals the answer is “no”.
“Though wages are rising, inflation is winning the race”
That’s the title of a NPR report.
Neoclassical Labor Supply Reduction, Labor Demand Decline, or Disequilibrium in Wisconsin
I see constant references to labor shortages in the Wisconsin economy (e.g, [1]). I think it’s important to understand the word “shortage” is not being used in the sense that a neoclassically trained economist would use the term.
Wages and Prices in Wisconsin
How are wages moving in Wisconsin, relative to the cost of living (as measured by the CPI)? It’s hard to tell.
Real Wages through November
If current nowcasts are accurate, we see erosion in some real wages, but not even those for hospitality and leisure. That’s not true for total private NFP using the PCE deflator. [italics denote correction 12/5]
Consumer Confidence, Inflation and Unemployment
There’s a lot of discussion regarding the negative impact of inflation on consumer sentiment. That’s definitely there – but unemployment also has a negative impact. And there is a (at least short run) tradeoff between the two. Relevantly, what would unemployment be in the absence of the American Recovery Plan, the CARES Act, and expansionary monetary policies of the Fed?
Are Low Wage Wages Keeping Up with Inflation
If accommodation and food service wages evolve in October in the same way the have covaried with overall leisure and hospitality service wages, then the answer is yes, for a variety of price indexes.
Five Measures of Real Average Hourly Earnings in Accommodation & Food Services
Still likely rising. We’re awaiting October CPI numbers, and October wages for accommodation and food services, but using nowcasts and extrapolations, we can show what real wages look like through October.
Some Trends in Real Wages
An argument increasingly being made is that inflation is being built into wage demands in a context of really tight labor markets, and this would induce a wage-price spiral. This outcome is plausible, but I think it’s useful to compare wages against CPI to see if wages are really abnormally high, and are starting to rise in tandem with inflation. [text corrected 8/13]