Real wages (wages as expressed in 1982-1984 dollars, so controlled for inflation) are higher now than before the start of the pandemic. They aren’t quite as high as they briefly got in early 2021 when the government was propping up the economy with large amounts of money both to employers and directly to people, when people were initially holding on to money rather than spending causing prices to drop (things were closed, people couldn’t or didn’t want to travel and go out) and before the supply chain crisis among other things started causing inflation across the globe. The wage growth since the pandemic has been highest for low income and hourly workers, so higher income salary workers may not have seen as much. Some industries may not have done as well as others, for instance the high interest rates to help control inflation hit tech jobs particularly hard. And as always, these are averages across the largest economy in the world with over 300 million people, I’m not trying to assert conclusions about any one person’s financial situation.
Also for more full context keep in mind that real wages dropped some for decades before finally starting to recover in the 2000s. We’re only just starting to get back to real wages as they were in the 1970s.
Real wages (wages as expressed in 1982-1984 dollars, so controlled for inflation) are higher now than before the start of the pandemic. They aren’t quite as high as they briefly got in early 2021 when the government was propping up the economy with large amounts of money both to employers and directly to people, when people were initially holding on to money rather than spending causing prices to drop (things were closed, people couldn’t or didn’t want to travel and go out) and before the supply chain crisis among other things started causing inflation across the globe. The wage growth since the pandemic has been highest for low income and hourly workers, so higher income salary workers may not have seen as much. Some industries may not have done as well as others, for instance the high interest rates to help control inflation hit tech jobs particularly hard. And as always, these are averages across the largest economy in the world with over 300 million people, I’m not trying to assert conclusions about any one person’s financial situation.
January 2020 and January 2021 real wages https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/realer_02102021.htm
June 2023 and June 2024 real wages https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.t01.htm
Wage growth vs inflation since March 2020: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/
Also for more full context keep in mind that real wages dropped some for decades before finally starting to recover in the 2000s. We’re only just starting to get back to real wages as they were in the 1970s.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/