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In reply to the discussion: Employers added 528,000 jobs in July, as the hot labor market powers on [View all]mathematic
(1,439 posts)Large spikes in cpi vs core cpi are always going to hurt real wages because everybody's wages aren't adjusted monthly. Annual adjustments by contract or convention, switching jobs, automatic increases as a new hire after a certain time on the job are all common mechanisms for wage increases.
There might be other factors at play here too with covid increasing retirements (higher earners leaving the workforce) but I think the main issue is just that it takes time for wages to be adjusted.
The good news is that people are still leaving their jobs in large numbers to find new, better jobs and gas prices have dropped for almost 2 months straight now so CPI is going to cool off considerably. Barring another supply shock in food or energy, I think we'll see real wages start to increase over the next couple months.