average earnings

Wage growth cooled in September, offering hints that labor shortages and inflation pressures might be easing as economic growth loses steam.Average hourly earnings rose 5% in September from a year before, still rapid but below August’s 5.2% pace and the slowest annual rate since December 2021, the Labor Department said Friday. They increased 0.3% in September from the month before, the same rate as in August, but half of January’s pace. The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates…

Monthly wage growth for U.S. workers slowed in August to its slowest pace in half a year as more people sought work and hiring lost some steam.Average hourly earnings for private-sector workers rose by 10 cents, or 0.3%, to $32.36 in August from July, the Labor Department reported Friday. The number of people in the labor force—defined as those holding or seeking jobs—reached its highest level since U.S. records began in 1948 at a seasonally adjusted 164.7 million last month, up 0.5% from July. The share of adults working…

U.S. inflation eased slightly but remained close to a four-decade high in July despite cooling energy prices.The Labor Department on Wednesday reported that the consumer-price index rose 8.5% in July from the same month a year ago, down from 9.1% in June. June marked the fastest pace of inflation since November 1981. The CPI measures what consumers pay for goods and services. Core CPI, which excludes often volatile energy and food prices, held steady in July, increasing 5.9% from the same month a year ago, a sign that…

Worker pay and benefits are rising this year at the fastest pace on record, keeping pressure on historically high inflation.Business and government employers spent 5.1% more on compensation for workers in the second quarter compared with the same period a year earlier, without adjusting for seasonality, the Labor Department said Friday. That marked the fastest annual pace on records back to 2001, eclipsing the 4.5% annual increase in the first quarter. Wages and benefits for civilian workers increased a seasonally…

U.S. households’ spending rose more rapidly last month as they faced the highest inflation in more than four decades.Consumers boosted their seasonally adjusted spending by 1.1% in June, up from a revised 0.3% increase in May, the Commerce Department said Friday.Personal income rose by 0.6% last month, the same as the prior month. After taxes and adjusting for inflation, incomes fell by 0.3%. The report showed that inflation as measured by the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge, the personal-consumption expenditures price…

Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. wage growth accelerated, as weekly earnings jumped more than 7% in April and May of 2020 compared with the same months a year earlier. Newsletter Sign-up Real Time Economics The latest economic news, analysis and data curated weekdays by…

Leaders of United Airlines’ pilots union signed off on a tentative contract agreement that would raise pilots’ pay by more than 14% within 18 months.United Airlines Holdingsis the first major U.S. carrier to strike a deal with its pilots, and the agreement, if approved by rank-and-file members, could serve as a reference point for other airlines currently in contentious contract talks. Leaders of United Airlines’ pilots union signed off on a tentative contract agreement that would raise pilots’ pay by more than 14%…

Until the invasion, European inflation rates looked set to remain below their U.S. equivalent, reflecting a slower economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. This changed after the war started, sending food and energy prices surging in Europe. The only difference with the U.S. now: Pay rises in Europe are lagging far behind inflation, leading to a sharp decline in real wages—wages adjusted to take consumer-price rises into account. “We budget 100 euros for each trip to the supermarket and we keep coming…

The U.S. economy added jobs at a solid pace in May, extending the labor market’s long stretch of gains.Employers added 390,000 last month, the Labor Department said Friday. That was the slowest pace of growth since April of last year, a 12-month period that saw job gains average 552,000 a month. Still, the May total was well above the average number of new jobs created in the 12 months to February 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic became widespread in the U.S. The unemployment rate…

Wages for the median workers at the majority of big American companies are higher than they were before the pandemic, with the tight job market helping to lift paydays for many bank tellers, factory workers and software programmers.Compensation in 2021 for the median worker at 275 companies in the S&P 500 index was higher than in 2019, including 150 companies where it increased 10% or more from 2019, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Half as many firms reported their median worker’s 2021 compensation…