Real wage growth: November 2018 update
Real wage growth: November 2018 update
Now that November inflation has been reported (as unchanged), let’s update what that means for real wages.
Nominally, wages for nonsupervisory workers grew +0.3% in November. With inflation flat, that means real wages also grew +0.3%:
Even so, although they are at a new 40 year high, real hourly wages are nevertheless below their peak level set in the early1970s!
On a YoY basis, real wages have risen 1%:
Since 1999, the change in real wages has almost explusively been determined by the price of gas.
Finally, real aggregate wages have now risen 26.8% from their bottom in October 2009:
The total advance during this expansion is only exceeded by the 1960s and 1990s at this point.
On the other hand, growth in real aggregate wages has averaged 2.5% in this expansion, varying from 1% to 8% depending on what has happened with gas prices:
This is a very weak rate of growth, ahead of only the 2000s expansion and on par with the 1980s expansion.
All in all, the grwoth in real wages is good news. It’s just nearly good enough compared with the growth in business profits generated by the expansion.
Inflation flat? Or was inflation zero (price level unchanged)?
There was British guy on MTP Daily this week talking about Brexit and he made an observation that struck me as accurate:Capitalism is not working for anyone except the super rich and that underlies Britons narrow adoption of Brexit even if everyone is poorer as a result. I suspect it also underlies Trump’s narrow victory in 2016. The continued failure of trickle down economics only underscores capitalism’s failure and that in turn has weakened the governments which unabashedly support it.
Sorry Terry, your wrong. Trumps victory was Mitt Romney’s victory. Once again, stop creating false narratives. You do this over and over again. Brexit is a neoliberal project. Supported by “UK” neoliberals.
Matter of fact, the main difference between the 1983 “vote” on the future EU and 2016 was the neo-liberals who wanted their “British” model of international globalism. The same ole 25% that voted in 1983 were still there, but the increase, especially of non-white’s voting for “Brexit” surged over the 1983 vote. Terry misses that.
Neo-liberalism is built on coalitions Terry, just like any group. Not all globalists see the same thing.
The first chart demonstrates why long (very long) timeframes should be used in charts.