Click to enlarge.
1960s: 7.56%
1970s: 9.47%
1980s: 7.24%
1990s: 5.65%
2000s: 3.68%
2010s: 3.90%
Sense a downward trend? Is it any wonder that GDP growth is anemic and interest rates are so low?
It isn't that the 2010s are extremely weak. They are. It's that wage growth in the 2010s is extremely weak even with rapidly falling unemployment *and* a complete lack of recessions (so far). We're barely beating the 2000s and that era had both a dotcom bubble *and* a massive housing bubble pop. Talk about setting the bar low.
Will the 3.90% growth rate in the 2010s hold for the full decade? I believe that it would take a miracle to go another 5+ years without a recession. I won't be holding my breath. Let's just put it that way.
Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Compensation of Employees, Received: Wage and Salary Disbursements
Just to be clear, I'm displaying annual growth rates as determined by exponential growth curve fitting for each decade.
ReplyDeletehttp://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=LCI
ReplyDeleteemployees vs. 74% of 15-64 peeps
10 million more people out of work compared to the good times of 1999
"2,000 zero zero"
Each decade 1970, 80s, 90s saw 20M jobs added
ReplyDelete2002-2014 has seen +10M jobs, twice.
Not quite the same thing
Troy,
ReplyDeleteNot quite the same thing
Understatement of the year! Sigh.