The Wall Street Journal is excited:
American workers received their biggest pay raises in a nearly decade in the year to June, a sign the strong labor market and low unemployment is boosting wages as employers compete for scarcer workers. The employment-cost index, a measure of wages and benefits for civilian workers, rose 2.8% in the 12 months to June, the Labor Department said Tuesday. Wages and salaries, which account for about 70% of total compensation, also rose 2.8% from a year earlier. That marked the strongest gain for both measures since September 2008.
I am so tired of this shit I could croak. Unless I missed it because I was so annoyed, there’s not a single mention in the Journal story about what this “pay raise” looks like adjusted for inflation. So for your edification, here’s the ECI itself adjusted for inflation
It doesn’t really seem to be growing much lately, does it? Here’s another chart showing the year-over-year growth of the ECI adjusted for inflation:
Yep, you read that right: growth from June 2017 to June 2018 is a whopping 0.13 percent. That’s how much the average cost of employing someone has increased over the past year. That includes wages, health care, Social Security payments, office costs, pension benefits, etc. etc. It’s the whole enchilada. Total it up and it comes to 0.13%.
Does this mean that the “steady drumbeat of rising inflation continues”? I suppose, but you could simply put up a chart showing the inflation rate if that’s the point you wanted to make. Conversely, “U.S. Workers Get Biggest Pay Increase in Nearly a Decade” is just a straight lie by any measure. In fact, worker compensation increased at its lowest rate since 2014.
