|
|
U.S. wages rose 5.1 percent in February, year on year, throttling back from January’s 5.5-percent gain, the labor department reported.
Wages have increased by 5 percent or more in four of the past five months, The Wall Street Journal noted.
In contrast, wages rose an average of 3.2 percent in the two years ending February 2020 when the COVID virus struck.
Pay grew fastest for jobs hit hardest by the COVID War: wages for retail workers rose 7.1 percent, compared to 5.8 percent in January; transport and warehouse workers received 7.7 percent more, against January’s 7.1-percent raise.
Lower-level factory and production workers found 6.7 percent more in their paychecks in February than a year earlier, the same annual rate of increase as in January.
Wages for food service, leisure, and hospitality workers jumped 11.2 percent last month, year on year, compared to 12.6 percent the month before. Payment in the sector has increased the fastest among all categories during the post-COVID economic recovery.
In higher-paid industries, pay grew more slowly. In financial services, for example, salaries edged up 1.9 percent over the previous 12 months.
Overall, service-sector pay swelled at a 5.2-percent annual pace, while wages for manufacturing jobs rose 4.6 percent.
At the same time, inflation galloped at 7 percent in February, pulling back from January’s 7.5-percent bump but still significantly more than wages grew.
The difference shows that costs grew 1.9 percent more than wages last month, taking almost $1,000 of purchasing power out of a $50,000 annual income.
TRENDPOST: Rising wages that are still unable to keep pace with inflation set the stage for a wage-price spiral. Thus, as workers are paid higher wages to cover the higher cost of living, businesses raise prices on products and services to cover the costs of higher wages.
In fact, the wage-price spiral has already begun in the U.S. and will accelerate globally. It is also part of our Top Trends for 2020, as we have detailed in this and other Trends Journals: unionization.
TREND FORECAST: As inflation outpaces wages, people will take to the street to protest the lack of basic living standards, government corruption, crime, and violence. It will be a continuation of the “New World Disorder” that was raging across the globe prior to the 2020 COVID War.
And, as economic conditions continue to decline, there will be new anti-establishment “Off With Their Heads 2.0” political movements in protest of the rich getting richer while the middle class and poor get poorer.
TREND FORECAST: The Ukraine war will swell prices even faster, widening the distance between prices and households’ purchasing power. The implications are enormous, from prospects for recession, Dragflation, and depression to political, corporate, and supply chain upheaval to individuals’ mental health and family dissolution.