Stocks tumbled as unexpected gains shocked investors, who hoped a sour economic situation would keep the Fed from raising rates as quickly as it had suggested
Lots of workers are getting raises, but for many, the pay hikes won’t buy them more at the grocery store or car dealership. In fact, wages are behind where they were when the pandemic began, if you take rising prices into account.
Inflation-adjusted wages, which have been falling steadily since mid-2020, are 1.2% below where they were in December 2019, according to an analysis of Employment Cost Index quarterly data by Jason Furman, an economics professor at Harvard University. The index measures wages and salaries, along with health, retirement and other benefits.
Over the last year, inflation-adjusted wages dropped 2.4%.
But there are workers in a few industries who are eking out small pay increases after accounting for the jump in prices.
Employees in the leisure and hospitality sector — which includes waiters, cooks and hotel clerks — have seen their inflation-adjusted wages rise 2% since December 2019.
But even these workers aren’t doing as well as they did prior to the pandemic, when their wages were growing at an even faster rate over inflation, Furman said.
