Wages: Less is More?

Continuing our theme from Yen Carry Squeeze and Stagflation?, in Wages: More is Less? we pointed out how the MSM trump-eted nominal hourly wage increase, was actually a decline in weekly earnings, due to the fact that average hours worked had declined.

And now this confirmation in the REAL hourly wage decline from another terrestrial source of extra intelligence...

In Congratulations Workers! You Make One Penny More Than a Year Ago - Mish Shedlock also points out the obviously sad but true facts from the January 2018 BLS wage report...

From December 2017 to January 2018: Real average hourly earnings for ALL employees decreased 0.2% and Real average weekly earnings decreased 0.8%.

Without boss man....

Real average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees decreased 0.5% and Real average weekly earnings decreased 0.8%

At the end of the year...

From January 2017 to January 2018, real average hourly earnings for those non supervisory employees increased 0.1%.

In other words, for all of 2017, hourly wages went up from 9.16 to 9.17, ONE WHOLE PENNY.... HOORAY and at the end of the month you have extra money to SPEND!!!

[for production] that's an extra $1.67 per month. If you are management, you make the big bucks. You have an extra $160.64 in real terms. That's an extra $13.39 per month.

And Mish's conclusion...

The pundits are all worried about wage inflation. Spend it wisely folks.

And I suppose, try not to spend it all in one place either. Although we would love to see healthy wage inflation for all driving this economic bus, the Nattering one could not agree more with Mish and the incontrovertible math.

Unfortunately, as that bus driver and his union were kicked to the curb along ago, both real and nominal wage inflation won't be driving this economic bus or train wreck anytime soon.  More to come in our conclusion Reasons For A Market Free Fall? - Finale, stay tuned and no flippin.