Human Services News

From Economic Policy Institute:

Data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that a combination of slower wage growth and faster inflation has led to falling real hourly and weekly earnings for most workers.

The Economic Snapshot shows the yearly change in real earnings for the approximately 80% of the workforce that are non-managers in services and blue-collar factory workers.

After handily beating inflation last year, wage growth began to slow as the economy lost speed in the last quarter of 2007.

A year ago, annual hourly wage growth before inflation was 4.3%; this year (from January 2007 to January 2008), it was 3.7%.

Inflation, conversely, driven up by higher energy prices, is growing about twice as fast as was the case one year ago.

Second, the reality of squeezed paychecks for most workers helps to explain the primacy of economic concerns among voters in the presidential primaries.

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