The first three months of the year saw wages for manufacturing workers rise at the most in over a decade.
The employment cost index, a measure of wages and benefits paid by businesses, for manufacturing workers rose by one percent 0.9 percent in the first quarter, Labor Department data released Tuesday showed. The salary and wage component rose even more–by a full percentage point.
The last time manufacturing saw quarterly wage gains that high was in 2008, when wages also rose 1.0 percent in the January through March period.
Compared with a year ago, manufacturing wages were up 2.9 percent in March. That’s the biggest 12-month gain since March of 2003, when wages rose 3.2 percent.
By Barack Obama’s final year in office, manufacturing wages were rising an average of just 0.625 a quarter.
Very low inflation means that unlike past gains in worker pay, these have not been eaten away by higher prices. Prices in March were up just 1.5 percent compared with year-earlier levels, which makes the real wage gain 1.4 percent. Back in March 2003, prices were up 2.5 percent. So most of the paycheck growth went to higher prices. In March of 2008, the situation was even worse: 3.1 percent inflation meant workers were actually losing ground despite growing paychecks. – READ MORE