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Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

axios.com

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Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#51

Post by kqr »

paxys wrote: post #28
ralph84 wrote: post #11

It never does. This is just accelerating the pandemic-era wealth transfer that started with the rich getting trillions to prop up their assets while everyone else got $600.

> It never does Except in 10 of the last 12 years, as you can clearly see in the same chart

The chart doesn't say anything: It looks like a mean-reverting walk focused on way too small a section to be able to draw any strong conclusions about what the actual mean is.

Zoom out a bit and you get something slightly more useful, which does support your argument, too: wages seem, in general, to keep up with inflation – though with lot of variation. https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-MA272_wages4_G...

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#52

Post by kelseyfrog »

tjpnz wrote: post #40
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #20

We had an all-hands meeting recently where we got to submit anonymous questions. One of the questions was 'with inflation rising at 6%, will the company reconsider their 'standard' 2% raise?' The lady answering looks dead in the camera and goes 'Honestly? No' and goes on to talk about how we're reasonably competitive with the local market. Hey, credit where credit is due, at least she was a refreshingly straight shoo…

In my experience HR are never receptive to those types of arguments. If you want a raise the best thing you can do is find a new job.

The best thing you can do is organize your workplace. Job hopping allows businesses to eat the market at the edges and eventually squeeze those demands out of the labor pool.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#53

Post by kelseyfrog »

paxys wrote: post #49
noja wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chart excludes housing. It's pointless.

Says who? CPI does include housing.

CPI includes housing as "Owners' equivalent rent of primary residence (OER)". If that inspires confidence in anyone, please, I'd like to hear how.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#54

Post by AnthonyMouse »

tjpnz wrote: post #40
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #20

We had an all-hands meeting recently where we got to submit anonymous questions. One of the questions was 'with inflation rising at 6%, will the company reconsider their 'standard' 2% raise?' The lady answering looks dead in the camera and goes 'Honestly? No' and goes on to talk about how we're reasonably competitive with the local market. Hey, credit where credit is due, at least she was a refreshingly straight shoo…

In my experience HR are never receptive to those types of arguments. If you want a raise the best thing you can do is find a new job.

> If you want a raise the best thing you can do is find a new job.

Note that this doesn't always even involve taking it.

Go get a job offer that pays better and bring it to your boss. If they want to match it, great. If they don't, bye.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#55

Post by neonbjb »

baron816 wrote: post #18

This isn’t exactly great news, but it’s probably not as bad as you think. It means that inflation is a tractable problem. The Fed as a lot of tools at its disposal (first of which is to take its foot off the gas). If we were in a situation where workers were demanding higher wages because they were expecting prices to go up, and businesses were raising prices to pay workers who were demanding higher wages, then we’d…

This is wrong IMO - the fed has NO tools in its hands. Its last tool was inflation rates, and it burned that during the great recession. It is now caught in a pickle: raise interest rates, causing a mass exodus of wealth from securities to savings accounts and CDs and causing the stock market to tumble (like it arguably always should have done since 2008), or let inflation take its course.

I am not an economist, and I'd love to be proven wrong. I just don't see how this ends in a good way for the economy.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#56

Post by nicoco »

aeternum wrote: post #37
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #20

We had an all-hands meeting recently where we got to submit anonymous questions. One of the questions was 'with inflation rising at 6%, will the company reconsider their 'standard' 2% raise?' The lady answering looks dead in the camera and goes 'Honestly? No' and goes on to talk about how we're reasonably competitive with the local market. Hey, credit where credit is due, at least she was a refreshingly straight shoo…

It's foolish to raise by 6% across the whole company when most employees are too lazy to interview elsewhere. Whether or not employees are actually worth 6% more they should not have a problem finding a new job in this market (that will pay 6% more).

I think you're missing the point. With a 6% inflation, a 6% raise means the employees are worth the same as before, not more.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#57

Post by tempestn »

Supermancho wrote: post #41
baron816 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It never does. The first thing in the article is a graph where 7 our of the 11 years shown have positive real wage growth. If worker pay never kept up with inflation, the country would be among the world’s poorest.

How does that math work? > If worker pay never kept up with inflation, the country would be among the world’s poorest. That is flat wrong. Even if you were still making 23$ an hour as you did in the 70's: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/50-years-of-us-wages-... https://www.factcheck.org/2019/06/are-wages-rising-or-flat/ ...you'd still be among the top 20% of earners across the earth. Let's take another step do…

"Never" doesn't only refer to the period from the 1970s to now. You'd be making a lot less than $23 per hour if wage growth never kept up with inflation.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#58

Post by silisili »

As someone who does OK, but lives in reality (not the bay area), I feel a revolution coming. I hope it's not a violent one, but who knows at this point. Hopefully it's just a politician with big policy changes.

People feel completely disenfranchised. You keep hanging housing over their head but just out of reach like some baby toy, then inflation spikes everything else. What's the point of working even?

I don't know the solution, but I don't have a good feeling about the next 10 years.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#59

Post by onion2k »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #20

We had an all-hands meeting recently where we got to submit anonymous questions. One of the questions was 'with inflation rising at 6%, will the company reconsider their 'standard' 2% raise?' The lady answering looks dead in the camera and goes 'Honestly? No' and goes on to talk about how we're reasonably competitive with the local market. Hey, credit where credit is due, at least she was a refreshingly straight shoo…

we're reasonably competitive with the local market

One of the best things Covid has done for my salary is make remote work far more common so I could get a job outside of the local market without having to move.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#60

Post by actually_a_dog »

baron816 wrote: post #18

This isn’t exactly great news, but it’s probably not as bad as you think. It means that inflation is a tractable problem. The Fed as a lot of tools at its disposal (first of which is to take its foot off the gas). If we were in a situation where workers were demanding higher wages because they were expecting prices to go up, and businesses were raising prices to pay workers who were demanding higher wages, then we’d…

That narrative makes sense, except for one thing: why wouldn't the Fed have taken their foot off the gas once inflation hit, say, 4%? Why wait until we're at 6.8%?
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