Real Wage Growth Over the Past Three Years

In an earlier post, I wrote:

Yes, Greg is quoting a NYTimes that we discussed this morning and yes it is technically true – if one does not consider the latest news from the BLS that nominal wage growth was only 2% on an annualized basis last month. We’ll have to wait to see how much the CPI rose. If real wages dip even by the slightest amount, then real wage growth from November 2003 to November 2006 will have been ZERO. Not exactly commensurate with the real wage growth

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its estimate of CPI inflation for the month of November and it was zero. So now we can compare the real average hourly wage for workers below management level for November 2006 to that of November 2003. In 1982$, the latter was $8.31 and the most recently reported real wage was $8.34. So real wages have increased by 0.36% over the past three years.