Real Wages - Stagnant No More

From Q1 1979 until Q4 2014, real median wages for full-time employed Americans went nowhere fast. In Q1 1979, they were 335. Thirty-five years later, in Q4 2014, they were 336. And for a good chunk of the intervening 35 years, they had been well below 335:

These numbers — from the St Louis Fed — are inflation-adjusted weekly earnings for the median full-time employee. They are expressed in constant 1984 dollars so that comparisons between different time periods are possible. Beginning in Q1 2015, median real wages finally began to grow. That growth accelerated in 2019, and by Q1 2020 real median wages had grown to 367. That's almost 10% in 5 years! COVID shutdowns play havoc with the data. A disproportionate number of low-income folks were forced out of work by the lockdowns. This accounts for the big spike in median wages during COVID. So, I'm leaving the period from Q2 2020 and all of 2021 out of the analysis. But the emergency was over by 2022. The inflation ignited by the COVID giveaways drove median real wages down to a low of 359 in Q2 2022. They finally returned to pre-COVID levels in Q2 2024, reaching 368. From Q2 2024 until Q2 2025 (for which we have the most recent data), they have jumped from 368 to 376. That's 2.2% in one year. That's a better pace than even the 2015-2019 period. We won't get data for Q3 2025 until late October, but indications are that nominal wages are growing faster than inflation, so I anticipate this growth in real wages will continue.

After a long period of going nowhere, regular working Americans have reason to feel good about the future.