Wage growth is outpacing inflation. High productivity is the key to sustaining that.

Oct 31, 2024
There's good reason to believe productivity will stay strong. When the labor market was tight, employers invested in upgrades.
U.S. workers have been more productive, and they've reaped a share of the economic gains.
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Wage growth is slowing, but it's still staying ahead of inflation

Oct 30, 2024
The job market is still tilted in workers' favor.
It's still a worker's job market, says Nicole Smith with Georgetown's Center on Education and the Workforce. That's because job openings outnumber people looking for work.
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Productivity growth beats forecasts in second quarter

Aug 1, 2024
Real wages also grew. To some extent, productivity growth offsets the inflationary effect of pay gains.
Because productivity grew alongside wages, economists aren't concerned about a wage-price spiral.
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A closer look at wage measures hints at why consumers still feel gloomy

Jul 4, 2024
Average wage growth has slowed in recent months, though according to the May jobs report, it’s still ahead of inflation.
"While wages have grown across the board, we've actually had the strongest wage growth among the lowest earners," says Valerie Wilson at the Economic Policy Institute.
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Will the May jobs report show more of a slowdown in wage growth?

Jun 6, 2024
Wages were running hot two years ago, rising about 6% annually. Things have cooled since then, with April average wages up just under 4%.
Economists expect continued moderation in wages.
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Signs point to a labor market that's cooling, but not cold

Mar 6, 2024
Private employers added 140,000 jobs in February and January’s job openings didn’t budge — though they were down from mid-2023.
In December and January, the economy added nearly 700,000 new jobs.
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Corporate profits have been trending down. That's what the Federal Reserve wants to see.

Nov 28, 2023
It means interest rate hikes are having the intended effect. Tapering consumer demand and high labor costs are weighing on earnings.
Corporate profits are feeling the effects of high interest rates and labor costs as well as weaker consumer demand.
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For public good, not for profit.

Is slowing wage growth good news for inflation?

Oct 31, 2023
But recent union victories may keep upward pressure on wages.
The Federal Reserve wants wage growth to slow because if employers spend more on labor, they'll likely try to make up that profit by raising prices.
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September's real wages are expected to rise

Oct 9, 2023
And that would mean your paycheck's purchasing power would be getting a boost relative to inflation.
Rising real wages means consumers are "making up for the consumption power that they lost when prices were rising faster than wages," says Erica Groshen, former Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner.
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The job market might finally be returning to "normal," economists say

Oct 5, 2023
Experts are predicting a slight decrease in wage growth, a drop that get us closer to pre-pandemic rates.
New September job market data comes out Friday, and economists expect we'll see a little less payroll growth than in August.
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