– by a New Deal Democrat
A Positive Outlook: The American Working Class Is Thriving , With the release of the Consumer Price Index report earlier this week, I can update several measures of the average income of middle-class Americans.
Real average hourly wages rose 0.2% in June and were up 1.6% from a year ago:
Real aggregate wages for the full spectrum of nonsupervisory U.S. workers rose 0.3% in June and were up 3.1% from a year ago:
This is an excellent coinciding marker of economic expansion versus recession. This tells us that, largely due to the declining price of gas since June 2022, average American workers and their households have had a significant increase in their ability to buy things. A very good positive sign.
Finally, one final note on the various measures of inflation. Several commentators highlighted the still high +5.9% year-on-year increase in “holding price” inflation. But as shown below, the 1-month and 3-month average changes in even this metric have declined sharply to approach the Fed’s target range:
