Wage Growth Vs Inflation

Historically, it takes average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory workers growing at about 3% year over year to get inflation to the Fed’s 2% target. Wages rose 2.8% year over year in May, a modest and welcome upside surprise from expectations of 2.7% and still ahead of inflation, but not yet at that 3% threshold. Nevertheless, this was still the fastest pace of wage growth since June 2009, when wages were still early in their post-recession decline (they would bottom in October 2012 at 1.2%). It’s also the fourth consecutive month of year-over-year wage growth accelerating, a streak we haven’t seen since 2013. Given the Fed’s emphasis that its inflation target is symmetrical, indicating comfort with letting inflation run a little hot, we would not consider wages an immediate threat.