Charting Hourly Earnings

On Thursday, Average Hourly Earnings “spiked” 2.9% year on year.  Is 2.9% a lot?

Unfortunately, the data set doesn’t go back before 2006 (when hourly wages were rising 3.5%).  For comparison, I’ve also included the chart for Average Hourly Earnings of Production and Nonsupervisory Employees.  This chart is a subset of hourly employees in production and service jobs below managerial the level.  While the level on the second chart is lower than for Average Hourly Earnings (2.5% vs 2.9%), the general pattern of the charts from 2006 – today is similar.

Using Production and Nonsupervisory as a proxy for Hourly Earnings, it seems as though the current level is the equivalent of the lows following the post-1990 recession, or mid-recovery post-2001 recession.

I’ll go on record that I think the Fed’s $4tn have caused inflation that the Fed and official record keepers have a hard time tracking, but I don’t think this is where you see it.