Monday, September 17, 2018

The Good News on Inflation

August's consumer-price index was a welcome slowdown on the inflation front. The CPI, which gauges what Americans pay for everything from rent to razor blades, was up 2.7 percent from a year earlier, a drop from the prior two months. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy, rose 2.2 percent, slightly slower than in July.

Worker pay gains, by contrast, are accelerating. Adjusted for inflation, hourly earnings rose 0.2 percent from a year earlier. While modest, that’s an improvement from the prior three months when there was no real wage growth.

That's significant because since the recession ended, inflation-adjusted pay is up just over 4 percent for American workers. Inflation-adjusted wages are up less than 1 percent for all workers and a scant 0.2 percent for production and nonsupervisory workers over the past two and a half years.

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