Are you falling farther behind?
Here are my "numbers that don't add up" for today:
Average pay increase expected this year: 3.8 percent, according to the compensation experts at Mercer.
Current inflation rate nationwide: 5.6 percent. And the local rate's likely to be higher.
Where does that leave you? Falling farther behind.
But it's not expected that workers will complain, because jobs are harder and harder to find.
In late July, more than 215,000 Floridians were filing for or receiving unemployment compensation. Florida has lost more jobs than any other state in the last 12 months, even the depressed auto industry's home state of Michigan.
Is Florida getting hit harder than the rest of the nation? I can't quite prove it in numbers, but it feels like it. Doesn't it?






Harriet Johnson Brackey, the personal finance writer for the Sun-Sentinel, has been an award-winning business...
