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To your point, every month we hear about the low unemployment rate, or the number of new jobs, etc. But we never hear about the average pay rate of the employed

To your point, every month we hear about the low unemployment rate, or the number of new jobs, etc. But we never hear about the average pay rate of the employed, or the pay and benefits of the new jobs created, or how many jobs someone has to work to afford a 2 BR place to live. Yes, sometimes these' things are mentioned in passing. But they're rarely is every used to make the case for "the economy is great..." Zoom out far enough, use aggregate data, and avoid details, and you can make property on the moon as sexy a beachfront property in Miami.

lifestyleguru 3y ago
Isn't number of Americans with two full time jobs at all time high currently?
- akavi 3y ago
  No[0]. As a percent of population, number of Americans with multiple jobs is well south of where it was from 1994-2009. [0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1cpAm https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1cpAm
  - chiefalchemist 3y ago
    Somehow I bet that's counting "on the books" employment. There are plenty of people with (cash) side-hustles and such. How people cope financially today isn't the same as 30 yrs ago.
    - kasey_junk 3y ago
      Why would there be more cash side hustles now than in the past? If anything I’d expect the rise of side hustle platforms, all electronic payments and the ease of getting into it to lower the number of uncounted side hustles.
gruez 3y ago
>But we never hear about the average pay rate of the employed It takes 30 seconds search to turn up: Employed full time: Median usual weekly real earnings: Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over 1982-84 CPI Adjusted Dollars, Seasonally Adjusted https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q The source above is deflated by CPI, and shows that earnings has been flat compared to pre-pandemic levels. Not great, but not terrible either. Some other sources point out that if you use the PCE deflator instead, earnings are actually up modestly (3% since 2019). https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/11/30/real-wages-have-risen-in-america-and-are-rebounding-in-europe https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/11/30/r...
- tuatoru 3y ago
  Now add the "All-Transactions House Price Index for the United States" line to the same chart.
  - gruez 3y ago
    I mean if you cherry pick which parts of the CPI basket to look at, you're almost guaranteed to find something that's growing faster than wages. The whole point of CPI is that you take all living costs into account, rather than cherry picking one particular item.
    - tuatoru 3y ago
      Sentiment is not rational in this way. Ownership of a house is one of the major milestones of life. If many people are being prevented from achieving it, they are going to say things are bad.
      - kasey_junk 3y ago
        Home ownership rates are down (a few %) from their historical highs pre 2008 but broadly higher than historical norms and trending upwards since a 50 year low in 2016. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
Don't know why you've been downvoted but you raise good points. Record low unemployment doesn't also mean record high QoL. It's easy to reduce unemployment if you also cut back on welfare while CoL increases, forcing people to take whatever shit jobs they can find just to not become homeless, and voila now you have record low unemployment.
burningChrome 3y ago
We've also had pretty good wage growth, but you'd never know because inflation is outstripping the wage growth so its negative. Which is why I'm puzzled why people keep touting the economy is so awesome. People are making more money, but it sure wouldn't feel like it when everything you buy is vastly more expensive. Even people on social media are talking about how they can't even go for a fast food meal anymore because its gotten too expensive. Fast food, too expensive. Think about that for a moment.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > you'd never know because inflation is outstripping the wage growth so its negative This is incorrect for most Americans and in most American zip codes [1]. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
  - burningChrome 3y ago
    2021: While those paychecks were 4.1% larger in November than they were in January, they will buy 2.8% less due to rising prices. Those rank-and-file workers have suffered less than their bosses. For all private sector workers, including managers and executives, weekly earnings averaged 3.1% more but could buy 3.0% less. 2022: With an overall increase of 4.7%. But with inflation at 7%, the average person lost ground in terms of real income. This was particularly true for the middle half of earners who saw a median wage increase of only about 2.5%. The picture was a bit better for low-wage earners, but not enough to shift the broader pattern for 2021: Inflation outpaced wage increases. 2023: Inflation roared back to the highest level in over 40 years, then slowed markedly. In all, consumer prices are up nearly 15.7%. Gasoline is up 51.2%. Raw wages, unadjusted for inflation, have risen every quarter of Biden’s presidency, and generally at higher rates than wages rose under his predecessor, Donald Trump. But once you adjust for inflation, many of these gains disappear. Real wages — that is, inflation-adjusted wages — fell or were unchanged during the first six quarters of Biden’s presidency.
- gruez 3y ago
  >We've also had pretty good wage growth, but you'd never know because inflation is outstripping the wage growth so its negative Source? BLS data[1] shows that CPI-adjusted wages are marginally up compared to pre-pandemic levels. There was a spike during the pandemic and current levels are down compared to that, but that's an issue with data collection rather than workers getting magically getting pay hikes during the pandemic. Specifically the lockdowns hit retail and hospitality workers the hardest. Those jobs also tend to pay low, so if those people aren't employed, the average goes up. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
canyonero 3y ago
Speaking about the US only (w/o actual data to back it up, just a feeling over the last year) is that lower-wage jobs have been on the rise out of the sheer necessity for businesses to attract warm bodies. Folks in the middle (low-middle -> high-middle( have had their wages depressed and lowered while the wealthiest individuals have had no impact or have seen their wages increased at or beyond inflation. The combination of very wealthy folks doing better and the lower income earners having higher wages has created dissonance around the reporting in the overall health of the economy IME.

lifestyleguru 3y ago

Isn't number of Americans with two full time jobs at all time high currently?

akavi 3y ago
No[0]. As a percent of population, number of Americans with multiple jobs is well south of where it was from 1994-2009. [0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1cpAm https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1cpAm
- chiefalchemist 3y ago
  Somehow I bet that's counting "on the books" employment. There are plenty of people with (cash) side-hustles and such. How people cope financially today isn't the same as 30 yrs ago.
  - kasey_junk 3y ago
    Why would there be more cash side hustles now than in the past? If anything I’d expect the rise of side hustle platforms, all electronic payments and the ease of getting into it to lower the number of uncounted side hustles.

gruez 3y ago

>But we never hear about the average pay rate of the employed It takes 30 seconds search to turn up: Employed full time: Median usual weekly real earnings: Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over 1982-84 CPI Adjusted Dollars, Seasonally Adjusted https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q The source above is deflated by CPI, and shows that earnings has been flat compared to pre-pandemic levels. Not great, but not terrible either. Some other sources point out that if you use the PCE deflator instead, earnings are actually up modestly (3% since 2019). https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/11/30/real-wages-have-risen-in-america-and-are-rebounding-in-europe https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/11/30/r...

tuatoru 3y ago
Now add the "All-Transactions House Price Index for the United States" line to the same chart.
- gruez 3y ago
  I mean if you cherry pick which parts of the CPI basket to look at, you're almost guaranteed to find something that's growing faster than wages. The whole point of CPI is that you take all living costs into account, rather than cherry picking one particular item.
  - tuatoru 3y ago
    Sentiment is not rational in this way. Ownership of a house is one of the major milestones of life. If many people are being prevented from achieving it, they are going to say things are bad.
    - kasey_junk 3y ago
      Home ownership rates are down (a few %) from their historical highs pre 2008 but broadly higher than historical norms and trending upwards since a 50 year low in 2016. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

Don't know why you've been downvoted but you raise good points. Record low unemployment doesn't also mean record high QoL. It's easy to reduce unemployment if you also cut back on welfare while CoL increases, forcing people to take whatever shit jobs they can find just to not become homeless, and voila now you have record low unemployment.

burningChrome 3y ago

We've also had pretty good wage growth, but you'd never know because inflation is outstripping the wage growth so its negative. Which is why I'm puzzled why people keep touting the economy is so awesome. People are making more money, but it sure wouldn't feel like it when everything you buy is vastly more expensive. Even people on social media are talking about how they can't even go for a fast food meal anymore because its gotten too expensive. Fast food, too expensive. Think about that for a moment.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> you'd never know because inflation is outstripping the wage growth so its negative This is incorrect for most Americans and in most American zip codes [1]. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
- burningChrome 3y ago
  2021: While those paychecks were 4.1% larger in November than they were in January, they will buy 2.8% less due to rising prices. Those rank-and-file workers have suffered less than their bosses. For all private sector workers, including managers and executives, weekly earnings averaged 3.1% more but could buy 3.0% less. 2022: With an overall increase of 4.7%. But with inflation at 7%, the average person lost ground in terms of real income. This was particularly true for the middle half of earners who saw a median wage increase of only about 2.5%. The picture was a bit better for low-wage earners, but not enough to shift the broader pattern for 2021: Inflation outpaced wage increases. 2023: Inflation roared back to the highest level in over 40 years, then slowed markedly. In all, consumer prices are up nearly 15.7%. Gasoline is up 51.2%. Raw wages, unadjusted for inflation, have risen every quarter of Biden’s presidency, and generally at higher rates than wages rose under his predecessor, Donald Trump. But once you adjust for inflation, many of these gains disappear. Real wages — that is, inflation-adjusted wages — fell or were unchanged during the first six quarters of Biden’s presidency.
gruez 3y ago
>We've also had pretty good wage growth, but you'd never know because inflation is outstripping the wage growth so its negative Source? BLS data[1] shows that CPI-adjusted wages are marginally up compared to pre-pandemic levels. There was a spike during the pandemic and current levels are down compared to that, but that's an issue with data collection rather than workers getting magically getting pay hikes during the pandemic. Specifically the lockdowns hit retail and hospitality workers the hardest. Those jobs also tend to pay low, so if those people aren't employed, the average goes up. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

canyonero 3y ago

Speaking about the US only (w/o actual data to back it up, just a feeling over the last year) is that lower-wage jobs have been on the rise out of the sheer necessity for businesses to attract warm bodies. Folks in the middle (low-middle -> high-middle( have had their wages depressed and lowered while the wealthiest individuals have had no impact or have seen their wages increased at or beyond inflation. The combination of very wealthy folks doing better and the lower income earners having higher wages has created dissonance around the reporting in the overall health of the economy IME.