Despite low unemployment,
wage growth has stagnated.
Mark Whitehouse at Bloomberg:
When I checked a couple months ago, I found pretty much zero evidence that companies were increasing wages any more than they otherwise would have. Now that we have data from two more jobs reports, let’s take another look.Overall, wage gains do not appear to have accelerated. From December through April, average hourly earnings increased at an annualized pace of 2.3 percent, significantly slower than in 2017. ..
Also, industries getting bigger tax breaks aren’t giving bigger raises. Two months ago, there was no correlation between the size of tax cuts and wage gains across sectors. Now it’s strongly negative. Companies engaged in wholesale trade reduced wages, even though they’re supposed to save 40 percent during the next decade (according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model). Utilities, among the biggest losers in the tax reform, raised wages at a 6.4 percent annualized rate.
