US Workers Made Only 8 Cents More Per Hour, Inflation-Adjusted, Than In January 1973 (While Real Home Prices Soar)

by confoundedinterest17

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics released their Real Earnings Report for August yesterday. And is it pretty depressing for US workers.

• Real average hourly earnings for all employees increased 0.4 percent from July to August, seasonally adjusted. This result stems from an increase of 0.6 percent in average hourly earnings combined with an increase of 0.3 percent in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U).
• Real average weekly earnings increased 0.3 percent over the month due to the change in real average hourly earnings combined with no change in the average workweek.

If we look at REAL US housing prices versus REAL average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees, we can see waves of imbalance between the two measures (also known as “bubbles”). Such as today.

But the real horror chart is the following (courtesy of Mish). It shows that real hourly earnings have barely changed since January 1973.

Of course, labor outsourcing to lower labor cost countries is the chief culprit. Karsten Manufacturing, maker of Ping golf clubs, no longer makes their castings in Phoenix AZ thanks, in part, to EPA regulations. Ping clubheads are now made in Asia.