Average hourly earnings increases under Trump remain sub-standard compared to Bush 43, Clinton and late Reagan eras

Pay increases for the bottom 80% of workers under Trump still lag those under George W. Bush at 2.9% vs. 3.2%

Average increases year over year through November 2019 and all of 2017 and 2018 average just 2.9% vs. Bush 43's 8-year average of 3.2%.

Yet all we hear is how this is the greatest economy ever, the greatest economy in decades, yada yada yada.

It's all BS.

It's the best economy in about eight years for your average worker, but still not as good as it was under Bush 43.

Average hourly earnings increases for bottom 80% of workers (non-management) were good at 3.4% in 3Q2019, but still fell far short of late period Reagan, Clinton and Bush 43 performance

Hourly earnings for 80% of workers up a good 3.4% in H1 2019, but even Bush 43 had better than that for three straight years 2006-08

Average hourly earnings increases for the bottom 80% of workers not-seasonally-adjusted are averaging 3.08% in April and May vs. 3.42% in 4Q2018 and 1Q2019

These are good numbers compared with the awful Obama era, but still far off the 4+% levels before the last two recessions.

Average hourly earnings for most people increased at a 2.9% annual rate in April 2019, a downturn from recent average quarterly experience

If this were an economic recovery like past ones, you'd think we could put together a string of year over year increases on a quarterly average basis above 3.5% lasting a couple of years, but that is still far from the case. The best quarter we've had is 4Q2018 at 3.46%.

Employers still have the whip hand.

Average hourly earnings are up 3.4% two quarters in a row for 80% of workers, but still fall short of pre-Great Recession highs

Trump's had strong wage gains in excess of 3% in six out of the last seven months for 80% of workers

Aug: 3.1%

Sep: 3.4%

--

Nov: 3.4%

Dec: 4.2%

Jan: 3.3%

Feb: 3.5%

Keep in mind that wage gains were similarly strong just before and even during the Great Recession.

Barry Ritholtz doesn't live in Realville, calls recent wage gains "decent" when they are peanuts

The Economy Is Finally Coming Through for U.S. Workers:

Decent wage gains are showing up in paychecks. That should continue for a while. Workers had an average gain in hourly wages of 3.2 percent in December, well above the average of 2.4 percent during the past five years . . ..

There's nothing wrong with his facts, just his perspective, which isn't long-term. He's content to compare his data to the Obama era, which sucked big-time. Note how he doesn't say that, however, big New York liberal that he is. 

Year over year, the average gain in 2018 isn't even Bush-league let alone Clinton-league. And certainly not pre-Reagan-league, when workers in this country got much bigger raises on average than they do in this supposedly booming economy.

Barry likes charts. Here's the only one that counts, showing that raises for 80% of workers on average can't hold a candle to the late 1980s, the 1990s, and the 2000s (when Democrats couldn't stop complaining about George W. Bush's horrible economy).

Employers remain stingy, and there is no employment boom, or else they'd be hiring all the old people the greedy bastards fired in 2009 because they made too much money.

I KNOW.

If this were an economic boom earnings for most people would be increasing 3-4% instead of 2-3%

Sorry Charlie: Jeff Cox of CNBC wildly exaggerates wages under Trump, "the last missing piece of the economic recovery"

Here in "Trump has set economic growth on fire":

Friday brought another round of good news: Nonfarm payrolls rose by a better-than-expected 201,000 and wages, the last missing piece of the economic recovery, increased by 2.9 percent year over year to the highest level since April 2009. That made it the best gain since the recession ended in June 2009. ... Indeed, the economy does seem to be on fire, and it's fairly easy to draw a straight line from Trump's policies to the current trends.

The wage series used by Cox for all workers differs little in August 2018 from the series for the 80% of workers who are production and nonsupervisory, except that the latter goes back much farther than 2006, giving a truer picture of where we are at. And where we are at is slightly better off than under Obama, but that's about it. It's still not as good as under George W. Bush, for crying out loud. And it's certainly not "on fire".

This is not an economic boom for most working people.

If this is a boom how come the scale of pay raises is so puny compared with the last three cycles?

For 80% of workers, inflation-adjusted average hourly earnings are down 0.22% from a year ago in June 2018

If it were a real jobs boom, we'd see rising real earnings pressure. We don't. The measure has been comparatively flat for two and a half years.

Employers are still pretty stingy to the average Joe compared to 10 and 20 years ago

Reagan free-trade globalism has gutted growth of worker earnings and suppressed job growth

It's not a boom: The pay increase for the vast majority of workers in February 2018 was merely average

YOUR average hourly earnings are NOT up 2.9% as widely reported, for example by Larry Kudlow this weekend

Yes, average hourly earnings of TOTAL PRIVATE, seasonally adjusted, is up 2.9% year over year in January 2018.

Well, whoop dee do. Not seasonally adjusted it's up only 2.2%.

What to believe?

Average hourly earnings of TOTAL PRIVATE reports as much of the total universe of earnings as possible, but that's not the universe of 80% of American workers. It includes everybody, including the higher rollers in the top 20% whose big increases can skew the reported number dramatically. 

80% of American workers inhabit the world of production and nonsupervisory workers, whose average hourly earnings have always been tracked by the government going back to 1964.

Seasonally adjusted those earnings are up 2.4% year over year in January, but not seasonally adjusted BARELY 2%, a below average figure for the measure which is in keeping with what's been going on since 2008.

The little guy in this country has been getting crumbs from the masters' tables since 2008 when the routine increases averaging 3.4% before that went away. The new era averages a gain of 2.2% year over year, a cut of 35%.

The biggest gain in recent memory was 2.8% for January 2017, meaning most workers got their best increases since 2008 in 2016, not in 2017, and the 2% gain for 2017 means . . . THIS IS NOT A BOOM.

When the average worker starts getting ROUTINE year over year increases above 3% you'll know things are better.

They aren't.

Average hourly earnings went up almost 29% under Bush, almost 12% under Obama to date

Up $4.12/hour under Bush after 8 years

Up $2.18/hour under Obama after almost 6 years

Rate of wage growth slows by almost 44% year over year 2014 vs. 2013

Not-seasonally-adjusted, the average hourly earnings of all employees grew by 1.88% between December 2012 and December 2013, to $24.30 from $23.85.

For the latest similar period ending in December 2014, average hourly earnings grew by 1.06%, a decline in the rate of growth of almost 44%, to $24.56.

This is pretty surprising given the enormous gains made by the stocks of corporations in 2013, up nearly 30%, and in 2014, up 11%.

Obviously the gains are accruing to the stockholders, not the workers who are viewed as a cost, not an asset.

Average hourly earnings are up 2.69% year over year, inflation 1.66% suggesting Fed tightening may be coming

Earnings are actually getting ahead of the curve in the latest data, suggesting the Fed may move to raise interest rates as "planned".

Not-seasonally-adjusted, average hourly earnings are up $0.65 from $24.11 to $24.76 for all private employees in November. For October the all items consumer price index is up only 1.66% year over year.

In July the picture wasn't as clear, before the dollar took off and gasoline prices began to fall off the cliff. Average hourly earnings at the time were up just 2.01% year over year while CPI (again with a one month lag) was up a nearly identical 2.07%.

I'll go out on a limb and say the Fed continues with "the plan" in order to cool the heat evident in rising earnings.

Not that they should.

I think everyone is forgetting that the employment numbers have recently surged as they always do at the end of the year because part-timers have swelled the ranks at the end of the year. Full-time surges to its cyclical peaks in the summers and early autumn. This is always made more clear by the not-seasonally-adjusted data, which is why it is often missed.

Remember, full-time failed to rise above the 2007 peak again this summer, the seventh year in a row and another dubious post-war distinction for the Obama regime, and part-time just made an all-time high.

An accommodative Fed is still probably necessary, unfortunately, at least the way they think.