Edward Conard

Top Ten New York Times Bestselling Author

  • “…a must-read for serious students of economic policy.” - Glenn Hubbard, Dean, Columbia Business School, and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers
  • “…reminds us that inequality sends a signal of what society lacks most, in America’s case, entrepreneurship and risk taking.” - Lawrence Lindsey, CEO, The Lindsey Group, former Director of the National Economic Council
  • “Unintended Consequences provides a provocative interpretation of the causes of the global financial crisis and the policies needed to return to rapid growth. Whether you agree or not, this analysis is well worth reading.” - Nouriel Roubini, New York University; Chairman, Roubini Global Economics
  • “…serious thinking for serious thinkers. …a thought-provoking blueprint for growing middle- and working-class incomes.” - Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts
  • “Unintended Consequences represents the most cogent and persuasive analysis of the Financial Crisis to date.” - Andrei Shleifer, 1999 John Bates Clark Medal Winner
  • “…a fresh argument for the productive value of inequality.” - David Autor, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • “…challenges misconceptions that distort our economic debates.” - Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute
  • “Unintended Consequences is far smarter and more thought-provoking than most economics written for the general public” - Greg Mankiw, Harvard University, Former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors
  • “Unintended Consequences is full of substance, it is one of the must-read books of the year, and once I finish it I will be giving it a second read through right away.” - Tyler Cowen, Professor, George Mason University
  • “There are an amazing number of good ideas and interesting points made in Unintended Consequences. The thinking underlying it, and the obvious depth of understanding of the author, are very impressive.” - Steven Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics; 2004 John Bates Clark Medal
  • “Unintended Consequences offers deep and well-argued analyses on almost every issue.” - The New York Times
  • “…a fresh argument for the productive value of inequality.” - David Autor, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Upside of Inequality Oxford Unintended Consequences

AI Summary. US consumer prices have risen almost 29% over the past six years, about 3x the pace of the prior six years, and on average prices have risen faster than wages over that period.

Owen Tucker-Smith Wall Street Journal
Date Posted:
Is Database:
Database

Inflation outpaced real year-over-year average hourly earnings growth in the 5 months through August.

Have prices risen faster than wages over the past six years?

Core argument: U.S. consumer prices, as measured by the consumer-price index, have risen almost 29% over the past six years, about three times the pace of the preceding six years.

Overall prices, as measured by the consumer-price index, have risen almost 29% in the past six years. During the six years before that, prices crept up at a third of that pace. Over the past six years, prices have, on average, risen faster than wages. The trend has been pronounced recently: In both July and August, inflation outpaced average hourly wage growth.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. U.S. consumer prices, as measured by the consumer-price index, have risen almost 29% over the past six years, about three times the pace of the preceding six years.
  2. Prices have on average risen faster than wages over the past six years, with inflation outpacing average hourly wage growth in both July and August.

Related Articles:

  • Sticky Wage Norms and the Real Wage Cost of Unexpected Inflation — Firms set nominal wage increases by round-number rules—about 42% of increases below 6% fell within 0.01 percentage points of a whole or half number—and these rules rose only from about 2.7% to 3.5% as inflation peaked near 7%, contributing to falling real wages for job stayers.
  • Do Voters Punish Inflation or Pay Cuts? Inflation and Real Wages in U.S. Elections — An analysis of U.S. counties estimates that where wages grew faster than prices, voters supported the incumbent party more, while counties with larger real wage losses than average shifted more toward the opposition. A one-standard-deviation larger real wage loss is associated with shifts of roughly 0.10 and 0.19 percentage points in vote share and margin.
  • The Cost of Money is Part of the Cost of Living: New Evidence on the Consumer Sentiment Anomaly — Variation in the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index that inflation and unemployment cannot explain is strongly correlated with growth in consumer borrowing costs, such as mortgage and car loan rates. The authors estimate that including interest payments and homeownership costs in the consumer price index would raise measured inflation from 3% to 9%.
Showing 132 database articles primarily about Wages/Income