Skip to content

Blue-collar earnings rose 4% in May

Weekly blue-collar earnings were up 4% in May compared to April. However, earnings have been flat for the past year, and after their big jump at the start of the pandemic have been dropping steadily ever since:

Earnings for all workers fell 1% in May after adjusting for inflation.

2 thoughts on “Blue-collar earnings rose 4% in May

  1. skeptonomist

    Kevin's graph, in terms of percent since 2020, may be misleading. In terms of the usual change over the last year, production worker wage growth has not quite returned to positive.

    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=167d9

    That is wage-earners have essentially been losing ground to inflation since early 2021. As Kevin has said (with references), to blame wages for the inflation makes no sense. Of course the idea that the Fed has caused inflation to abate by reducing wage growth is also nonsense.

  2. Batchman

    I still have doubts about your practice of adjusting wages for inflation. If you don't do that, you can say "Earnings for all workers rose but failed to keep up with inflation" and still make your point.

Comments are closed.