Not much good news today. Labor productivity fell 2.1% in the first quarter, marking the fifth decline in a row going back to October of 2021:
Hourly compensation is a key component of productivity, so BLS also calculates hourly pay as part of its overall measurements. Thanks to a raft of revisions, BLS now estimates that hourly pay has plummeted since the pandemic:
Adjusted for inflation, pay is down 6% since the middle of 2020. And it's down everywhere:
We are all getting paid less and we are producing less for each hour we work. This doesn't bode well for the economy down the road.