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Real Wages Are Dropping

Real Wages

Inflation is taking a chunk out of savings, wages, profits.

Here’s some perspective on the tight labor market: Once you adjust wage data for inflation, workers in the U.S. don’t seem to have made much progress since the before-times, Emily writes.

American workers earned $31.95 on average, in real terms in May 2022 — basically, the same as they were making right before COVID (h/t Axios chief financial correspondent Felix Salmon for doing the calculations).

Of note: The spike in earnings you see in the chart happened in April 2020 when millions of mostly lower-paid workers lost their jobs, changing the overall composition of the workforce. Those who held on to employment were higher-earners.

Axios Markets By Emily Peck and Matt Phillips · Jun 15, 2022