Note from Spencer
(Dan here…there is a lot of discussion about reasons for wages not keeping pace with productivity and the like. There are also discussions on the impact outsourcing, the role of monopolies and monopsony. and outright making it a policy to keep wages from rising.)
Spencer thinks:
Even though the year over year change in average hourly wages appears stable, if you look at the 3 month rate of change it shows wage growth accelerating significantly.
Figure 1
(uodate from Spencer…he average hourly earnings series used here is the old series for non-supervisory workers not the new series the BLS recently started publishing for all workers.
I know the new series is suppose to be better, but it is still a new series where unanticipated problems could still emerge. One would think that when two virtually identical data series are sending a different message that it would get more)
Moreover, my wage equations is still calling for wage growth to accelerate.
Figure 2
Meanwhile the monthly job numbers continue to show that employment growth is not significantly different under Trump than it was during the expansion phases of the cycle under Obama.
Figure 3
Just to set the stage right and to avoid confusion, the average hourly earnings series used here is the old series for supervisory workers not the new series the BLS recently started publishing for all workers.
I know the new series is suppose to be better, but it is still a new series where unanticipated problems could still emerge.
One would think that when two virtually identical data series are sending a different message that it would get more attention.
Spencer:
I agree with you; but if we know the difference, we can account for it. Unfortunately “we” is not everyone.