July 12, 2018

American Business Suffers as Wages Continue to Skyrocket

A couple of days ago I posted a chart showing the real increase in wages for American workers over the past year. Unfortunately, I could only draw the chart through May because we didn’t yet have the CPI inflation numbers for June. But today they’re out, so here’s an updated version of the wage chart:

The American worker has really been kicking ass over the past year! It’s no wonder so many companies are having a hard time filling all their positions. They’ve obviously done everything they conceivably can to attract workers off the sidelines, but for some reason workers just aren’t responding. What more can the business community possibly do?

POSTSCRIPT: I just know that some smart-aleck is going to complain that I’m showing only wages, and we really need to look at total compensation. Fine. Here it is through the first quarter of 2018:

I guess that shows me. The ECI is up a whopping 0.5 percent over the past year. Employers are really taking it in the shorts, aren’t they?

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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