(plus Wall Street and management)
From The Bonddad blog:
Consumer prices rose +0.5% in January. That in itself isn't bad news, as they rose an equal +0.5% one year ago, so the YoY inflation rate remains at +2.1% (so if 2% really is a target rather than a ceiling, it should not give the Fed any cause for alarm).But that much vaunted wage hike in the January jobs report has entirely disappeared, and not just for non-managerial workers, but for the average of all workers including managers. In fact in January real wages declined.And the trend is a little worrying.To begin with, real wages declined -0.3% for ordinary workers, and they are now down -0.8% from their July peak:
On a YoY basis, real wages are only up +0.3%:
Even worse, they are only up +0.1% from January 2016!Note that even when we include managers, real wages fell in January, and are -0.5% below where they were in July:
Another metric that I think is very important is aggregate real payrolls for non-managerial workers. This tells us how much money, in real terms, the middle and working class are earning....MORE
Previously:
Feb. 2
