One of the great puzzles of this economic expansion has been the tepid increase in wages, even as the unemployment rate has declined to 3.7% its lowest point since 1969.
But drill down, and there’s an even deeper issue, as The Washington Post reports in a recent analysis. A surprising number of workers aren’t seeing any wage growth at all. Their pay this year is exactly the same as it was last year, right down to the dollar.
Roughly 14% of workers—or 1 in 7—have seen their earnings stall over the past year, counting only those who have stayed in the same job. That’s only a slight improvement over the 16% rate reached in the hangover years after the Great Recession.
For comparison, the last time the United States had an unemployment rate under 4%—in the go-go dot-com years—the number of workers getting $0 raises fell below 10%, according to an analysis of Labor Department data from former Treasury Department Economist Ernie Tedeschi.
And note that the plight of these workers with frozen wages looks even worse once you account for inflation. The cost of living goes up a little bit every year, which means that same $70,000 salary is worth less in 2018 than it was in 2017.
