US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports average hourly wage growth has surpassed inflation for 12 straight months

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No one in this thread actually wants answers to their questions. They wanna bitch and moan. What are you thinking?

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I would like so see the median also.

TheReturnOfPEB

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I wonder what the average income is for US families if one was to remove all the billionaires from the statistic.

smokin_shinobi

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I can’t wait for that train to come to town.

TheReturnOfPEB

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The real median household income in the United States for 2022 was $74,580, which represents a 2.3 percent decline from the 2021 estimate of $76,3301. This figure is based on money income, which is pretax and does not account for the value of in-kind transfers. It’s important to note that this calculation excludes billionaires and focuses on the broader population.

It seems that they are already excluded for some reason.

CookieOfFortune

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Because it’s a median which by definition excludes extremes.

joostjakob

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They are not excluded, it's just the the number of people is used, not the amount of money

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Sounds like the median calc is done after billioares are removed

There are only about 1000 of them so not really sure what that does in labour market of 160m lol

joostjakob

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If you use median, removing or not of 1000 people from a pool of millions indeed has zero impact. My guess is that they worded it like that because they assume people don't knownwhat a median is, so they describe the practical effect

11111one11111

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Lol I hate to break it to you homie but billionaires are not paid in hourly wages so they are excluded from this report.

TheDemonBuer

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It's so nice to be leaving another historic, traumatic crisis and entering another depressing normal, where we get to live out our tedious, soul crushing lives while we await the next crisis.

littlebluespark

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Not this citizen here, though. This "tal" is a real patriot, sharing half-assed hopium around like smearing shit on his teeth and grinning at us all. 🤦🏼

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ITT: I haven’t personally experienced it so this is not true.

I wonder if y’all realize how like conservatives you are sometimes.

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Personal experience, speaking with the community and hearing their experiences mean nothing. Believe what the owner class says at all times.

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This is hilarious because I’ll tell you the exact same thing I told conservatives during COVID:

I’ll take data over your anecdotes, thanks.

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Permanently Deleted

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Hmmm..

Looking beyond the average, production/non-supervisory workers—roughly the bottom 82% of the wage distribution—started seeing positive real wage growth two months earlier in March 2023, now 14 months in a row (not shown).

Between 2019 and 2023, low-wage workers experienced historically fast real wage growth. The 10th percentile real hourly wage grew 12.1% over the four-year period. This tremendous real wage growth at the lower end of the wage distribution was exceptional, significantly faster than in any other business cycle peak since 1979.

But keep replying please because I could put your exact comments in the COVID threads I was arguing in back then. It's uncanny. It's the exact same shit conservatives say when data doesn't support their preconceived idea.

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Afraidofzombies put it well “I get what you are implying but it really isn't relevant. Economics is just someone's opinion at best, more often than not it is propaganda, lying with math. Not at all the same as the vaccine nutters or global warming denying.”

So no, it’s not the same and it’s not relevant

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That’s crazy how the post is about income vs inflation and their comment is about “economics”.

The post is about numbers. Ones which, if they told a story of doom and gloom, you’d presumably completely agree with.

This is great stuff. Thanks for taking my original comment further than I thought it would go. Truly brings me back to arguing with conservatives about COVID numbers. I’m just disappointed there’s no equivalent here for walking into a hospital demanding to see patients.

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Permanently Deleted

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Yeah sure

https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm

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I like data as well.

You will notice that not only has the US not returned to pre-housing crisis levels it hasn't even returned to March 2020 levels.

Now go ahead and try to hand wave this way.

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This is cool and all but the post is about wage growth in the past 12 months.

It's like if the post said, "did you know 1+1=2?" and you came along saying, "Yeah well 2+2=4". It's not a counter argument to the statement in the post title. It's another statistic altogether.

Now go ahead and try to hand wave this way.

No, handwaving would be saying something like, "well I haven't experienced this and also none of my friends have so it's not happening".

So, interesting stat which is relevant in a larger context but doesn't mean the post is factually incorrect.

Silentiea

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It is worth noting that the article itself does bring employment rate into it, stating that the reason for the real wages spiking like that did in 2020 was the lower wage employees leaving work, thus raising the average wage.

I haven't seen the data on employment rate, but if the bottom end of employees are still not back to being as employed as they were at the start of the pandemic, then that may be keeping average wages higher than they'd otherwise be

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The first mate on a ship decided to celebrate an occasion with a “little” stowed away rum. Unfortunately he got drunk and was still drunk the next morning. The captain saw him drunk and when the first mate was sober, showed him the following entry in the ship’s log: “The first mate was drunk today.” “Captain please don’t let that stay in the log”, the mate said. “This could add months or years to my becoming a captain myself.” “Is it true?” asked the captain, already knowing the answer. “Yes, its true” the mate said. “Then if it is true it has to go in the log. That’s the rule. If its true it goes into the log, end of discussion” said the captain sternly. Weeks later, it was the first mate’s turn to make the log entries. The first mate wrote: “The ship seems in good shape. The captain was sober today"

Once you understand this story all of economics makes sense.

Triasha

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The article is real and "shit still sucks" can both be true.

My thought upon reading the headline was "gonna need another 12 years before people start thinking we have turned the corner for the better."

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If an effect is that minor it could be statistical noise.

Triasha

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I just figured the hole is that deep.

Growing up my family could pile into a van for a 2 week road trip or Disney vacation every summer. My grandparents were still working at that time, grandfather was a small business owner mechanic. Grandmother was a part time bookkeeper for a non profit.

To have that financial independence today, I would need triple my income, or my wife and I would need to double our income.

I figure a decade+ of real wage gains across the economy would approximate that. Maybe not for me personally, but for the average.

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I get what you are implying but it really isn't relevant. Economics is just someone's opinion at best, more often than not it is propaganda, lying with math. Not at all the same as the vaccine nutters or global warming denying.

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The hole was really deep. And that inflation from Covid didn't go away. Beating inflation now does not negate losing to inflation then. You have to beat inflation that much harder to both gain now and make up for previous losses.

ChihuahuaOfDoom

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For who?

tal

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"For whom", and it's an average.

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What is the point of the word Who if you never get to use it?

ChihuahuaOfDoom

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Whom gives a fuck?

tal

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I'd assume you, given that you asked.

catloaf

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*who

Use "who" with "he", and "whom" with "him".

ChihuahuaOfDoom

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Wow

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For people making the statistical average hourly wage growth. If your wage gains are less than the numerical average of everyone else, its your employers fault, not the Bureau of Labor Statistics

noxy

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loud. sustained fart sounds yeah right

SuiXi3D

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Is that why I was fired after training my replacement that was paid less than me? Is that why nobody is paying the amount I was formerly paid for my skill set now?

Cuz, from my point of view, nobody wants to train and nobody wants to pay employees what they’re worth.

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Not sure who down voted you ... I guess people really don't have to work lol

Talk about privilege

SuiXi3D

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I’d love nothing more than to find a job that A) contributes to my personal development and B) isn’t constantly micromanaging me. Just lemme work, and lemme learn new stuff. That’s all I want, and that’s apparently too much.

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Yeah those jobs are super rare and they don't last!

You better come from the right back ground and have elite/good education

be super-smart and grind your way to the op

Only one of these works most of the time lol It is by design.

All other jobs: Sucks to suck for regular workers.

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Not sure who down voted you

Anyone who thought it was kind of stupid to bring up their getting fired as if it's a response to income statistics.

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their getting fired

🤡

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When you nitpick grammar and spelling, you’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

And if you’re gonna do it, at least make sure it was actually wrong lol.

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nobody got fired bu you are using wrong term tho

This is no grammar or spelling, this is propaganda

PS looks like so did OG comment

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Hu? It’s literally in the comment starting this thread…

Is that why I was fired

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He deff wasn't fired and should apply for unemployment

shortwavesurfer

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I got some oceanfront property in Arizona. I'd be glad to sell you.

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And your employer will be happy to give you a raise that is less than the statistical average of other people.

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And how much of that is minimum wage going up? Don't get me wrong I love that. But going from 15k to 20k a year is going from drowning to clinging to a piece driftwood. The full time annual take home needs to be around 40k-50k per person with all the decades of negative real wages.

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And the name of the person running that department? Albert Einstein. Now everyone clap

ZombiFrancis

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looks at graph

Real wages are still below inflation. Nominal wage growth is what is above inflation.

Which means people are getting more money but it is worth less.

This means economic growth is down, and therefore the overall economy is demonstrably not in good shape.

*Edit To add from the article:

Nominal wage growth is the year-over-year growth in wages, not adjusted for inflation.

So... this doesn't mean a whole lot then.

roscoe

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Nominal is more than inflation so real is above 0.

Real just has to be above 0 for inflation adjusted wages to be going up.

I still call bullshit though without knowing where the increases are. All the increases could be in the top 10% with everyone else going down and only the average is above 0.

Edit: I was wrong, the growth is actually weighted toward the lower end.

Silentiea

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The "real wages" is just the difference between the nominal wages and inflation. It's negative when wages have increased but not as much as inflation, and positive when they've increased more than inflation.

So the literal number of dollars people are getting have been going up the whole time, but for a while there the amount of stuff your money could buy you was going down anyway. It's recently the case that the amount of stuff you could buy has been going up. Not, you know, a lot, but...

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Real wages are still below inflation.

That is impossible since 'real wages' are the difference between nominal wages and inflation.

Nominal wage growth is what is above inflation.

Which is another way to say that real wages (after inflation) are going up.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Policy_Institute

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This is a pro Union and pro labour org

But this inflation shill is hard to reconcile tbh

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The last time I looked the real impressive growth was at the lowest ends of the labor market. Effectively it's state minimum wage increases hitting. Everyone above minimum wage is far less affected by this. But you do have to go looking for that kind of information. Leadership wants to look at the line go up and cheer, not understanding that the person making the median isn't really affected by this. the other fun thing is since it's mostly minimum wage movement, they aren't suddenly being able to afford stuff. They're still getting crushed by inflation like most people.

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Which is great... lower end is who needs income improvement he most.

However, this is not a W overall and neither side is able to really provide any plans how to fix structural issues.

More Perfect Union is another example who is shilling biden recently, i mean i get it... but labor orgs push it too hard, they will lose credibility imho.

Democratic party is not pro labour, neither is Biden. If people can make their choices, i don't get my these orgs are taking this risk.