Republicans crow about wage growth. But rising consumer prices are all but wiping out the gains.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Republicans got another economic headline to crow about Tuesday: The Labor Department reported workers enjoyed their biggest pay raise in a decade over the 12 months that ended in June.

Here was President Donald Trump on Twitter: “Worker pay rate hits highest level since 2008.”

And House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., also on Twitter: “Great news. Worker pay rates have risen to the highest level since 2008. This morning’s BLS—gov report shows that worker compensation has been on a steady rise over the past year and a half.”

But the result is mostly a wash for workers. Rising consumer prices are all but wiping out the gains in their paychecks. The quarterly report – known as the employment cost index – measures trends in both wages and benefits by tracking about 6,600 private businesses and 1,400 state and local governments. It rose 2.8 percent over the previous year, the biggest such increase since the third quarter of 2008.

https://www.heraldnet.com/business/republicans-crow-about-wage-growth/?utm_source=DAILY+HERALD&utm_campaign=c755c41414-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d81d073bb4-c755c41414-228635337

[Fullduplexxx]

1. But wages arent increasing

[ProfessorGAC]

4. Technically They Are

But, as the data show, at or just barely over the change in consumer prices. And that's the aggregated value, so it means some significant portion of the workforce is falling behind CPI.

It's easy to talk about increases of 4 to 4.5% over 18 months (and 4% annualized over the 1st 6 months of '18) and brag about it, when you get to leave out that over those same 18 months the CPI has increased 4.38%. The delta, in real spending power is 0.12%, or 12 cents for every 100 dollars. (or 12 bucks for every 10,000)

When framed in the proper economic context, this is not really all that great.

[BigmanPigman]

2. Americans knew when they passed the Tax Scam

that it benefited the mega rich and that is why they hated it (even GOP voters could see this). They know that the "strong economy" is BS if the tariffs hurt their jobs security and the products they purchase keep increasing while their wages stay flat.

[lagomorph777]

3. And when Trump's tax loan comes due next year, we will more than lose the rest.

[TheFrenchRazor]

5. they're not fooling anybody over the age of 25; we KNOW that wages aren't keeping up with inflation.