Have Americans’ wages kept up with inflation? That depends
Determining whether workers’ wages have kept up with inflation depends on many factors.
Inflation in the United States reached its highest level in three years in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). And many Americans are feeling the pinch: In a Pew Research Center survey also conducted in April, 66% of U.S. adults said inflation is a very big problem facing the nation, up from 63% last year.
With many Americans worried about prices, it’s worth looking at whether workers’ wages have been rising quickly enough to keep up. Like a lot of things in economics, however, there’s not one definitive answer. Determining whether wages have kept up with inflation depends on many factors: how you define wages, which set of workers you examine, how you measure inflation and which time period you choose to analyze.
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