For the second month in a row, annual inflation fully offset workers’ average hourly wage growth
For a second month in a row, annual inflation fully offset average hourly wage growth in June, leaving workers’ real hourly earnings flat from a year earlier despite falling unemployment and a generally strong economy. Production and nonsupervisory employees, a category which includes blue-collar workers, saw their real average hourly wages fall 0.2% in June from a year earlier after a similar slip in May.
.. While workers made up for higher prices by working slightly more hours per week, the stagnation of Americans’ purchasing power underscores questions about the extent to which workers are benefiting from an economy that by many other measures is booming.
.. “Wage growth remains surprisingly weak,” said David Kelly, chief global strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, in a note to clients earlier this week. “The remarkable ability of firms to lure more workers back into the labor force and get stronger productivity gains from them without raising wages is a clear positive for profits.”
.. in June, Fed “participants generally agreed that the economic expansion was progressing roughly as anticipated, with real economic activity expanding at a solid rate, labor market conditions continuing to strengthen, and inflation near the Committee’s objective,” according to meeting minutes released last week.
Economists said Thursday’s data generally supported their view that inflationary pressures are gradually picking up.
.. The impact of those tariffs, should they take effect, won’t be negligible, economists say.
Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said the goods subject to the proposed tariffs account for almost 6% of the core CPI, meaning that a 10% levy would lift the index by up to 0.6 percentage point.
.. “The Fed can’t stand back and ignore a hit of this size, given the tightness of the labor market,” Mr. Shepherdson said in a note to clients dated Thursday. “People will seek to be compensated for the squeeze on their real incomes as a result of higher prices, and their chance of being able to force employers to pay up is better now than at any time since the crash.”