The latest numbers from the federal Labor Department reveal wages seemingly growing faster than inflation, or the rate of price increase, for Americans, though the comparison from the data currently available is not exact.
A Friday release of information in workplace statistics showed average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls up by 4.2 percent in September compared to the same month in the year prior. As for inflation, the same federal department measured inflation across the 12 months ending in August to be 3.7 percent — below the increase in wages, meaning it seems that, for many Americans, the money they’re making has kept pace with inflation, which has often been touted as not just an economic but also a political issue.
On Friday, President Joe Biden — while speaking to journalists — addressed some of the evident anxieties among many Americans about the current state of the overall economy. Citing the violence in Ukraine from the Russian regime, Biden said he observed reasons for Americans to be concerned but argued that the tone of media coverage helped spur negative sentiment.
He also called out GOP dysfunction in Congress as driving Americans’ concerns. Just the other day, then-GOP leadership in the House only put a spending measure that could be solidly expected to pass up for a vote with hours before a deadline that would’ve sparked a shutdown. Before that final hour save, Republicans had been running with proposals as extreme as a 30 percent spending cut across government. “If you just watched what happened last week in the Congress, how excited are you going to be about much of anything?” the president remarked. And government funding is still a problem under struggling GOP “leadership” in the House, since the last-minute deal only kept things running for a month and a half — and while Republicans struggle with who will become House Speaker after Kevin McCarthy, the clock is ticking!
Wow. What a jobs report!
JUST IN: The US economy added 336,000 jobs in September – that’s another strong month of hiring that blows away the 170,000 forecast.
Unemployment rate: 3.8% (same as August)
Wage growth: 4.2% y/y (above 3.7% inflation)
— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) October 6, 2023
