Fair point. The "real earnings" series divides average hourly earnings by the CPI — it is not a tracker that follows the same workers over time, so it confounds changes in the composition of the workforce with changes in actual pay.
What it shows is that the average hour's pay bought 0.2 percent less than a year ago. Whether any individual worker's wage went backward is exactly what it cannot tell us. Good correction.
We do not know if wages went backward or not. BLS does not collect wage data, only unit value of remuneration data.
Fair point. The "real earnings" series divides average hourly earnings by the CPI — it is not a tracker that follows the same workers over time, so it confounds changes in the composition of the workforce with changes in actual pay.
What it shows is that the average hour's pay bought 0.2 percent less than a year ago. Whether any individual worker's wage went backward is exactly what it cannot tell us. Good correction.