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Paycheck: Perking Up
Paycheck news: f you’re feeling a bit more flush, let me explain why.
In the first three months of this year, the median weekly earnings of the 100.4 million still-employed full-time workers around the nation went up. The increase was no great shakes. Just a 2.6 percent rise over the year before, said the Bureau of Labor Statistics Thursday.
But, that came at a time when there was no inflation. None. So workers got a real 2.6 percent increase in pay.
The trend has been going on for six months. In the final quarter of last year, wages rose 4 percent, while inflation was up just 1.6 percent. Workers' real pay rose 2.4 percent.
This is a reversal of recent history, in which paychecks were losing ground. Because as wages went up, inflation went up faster. For example, in the third quarter of 2008, wages went up 3.6 percent but inflation rose 5.3 percent, so real wages fell by 1.7 percent.
That meant you and your paycheck had less purchasing power. More money didn’t add up to much at all. It left the impression that there’s never enough.
With low to no inflation, any perk up in pay is feels good. And it makes a difference in your well-being.
Harriet Johnson Brackey, the personal finance writer for the Sun-Sentinel, has been an award-winning business...
Comments
My question is could this of happened because more lower salaried workers lost their jobs and the higher salaried kept them? Meaning less workers, but paid more.
This would also fall into the pattern of unemployment going up over the past six-months.
Posted by: Chad | April 17, 2009 12:23 PM
Correct chad. Unemployment stats have been manipulated in favor of business and pro business "new Democrat" and Republican politicians for decades now.
Many people are working part time (anything under 40 hours per week) without job security and count as employed on the books.
Wages have stagnated year over year since the 1970s. A very very long time ago. Even if they blip up in a brief moment against a potential deflationary collapse in the American economy, the trendline continues until we see clear long term political evidence of labor's wages going north instead of south.
Posted by: Evan | April 17, 2009 3:55 PM
i guess will need the increase to pay the beer tax ...cigareete tax ....bed tax...gas tax...they giveth and taketh ....how stupid do they really think we are...i am fed up
Posted by: LOU | April 18, 2009 1:23 PM
we need the increase to pay for the cigarette tax...the beer tax...the bed tax...gas tax cigar tax on and on...please stop insulting our intelligence washington.you are taking much more than you are giving.alot more ..fed up
Posted by: LOU | April 18, 2009 1:27 PM