Despite the highest inflation in 40-years, real wages are higher than pre-pandemic.

Real wages in March 2022, as calculated by the ratio of Avg. Hrly Earnings to CPI, is actually up 1.8% since Jan 2020!

Average Hourly Earnings are of Production and Nonsupervisory Employees, Total Private, which Paul Krugman used in his Jan 25th op-ed discussing the inflation narrative.

This dataset ranks OECD countries by their national minimum wage from 2001 to 2020. In 2020, Luxembourg and Australia had the highest minimum wages at $12.4 U.S. dollars an hour, once adjusted for purchasing power parity. Filter by country or year in the search bar of the dataset below to analyze wage changes over time.

Year over year growth in CPI and Wages

Wages are Average Hourly Earnings of Production and Nonsupervisory Employees, Total Private

and CPI is Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items in U.S. City Average

Average Hourly Earnings of Production and Nonsupervisory Employees, Total Private, Jan 2020=100

over

Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items in U.S. City Average, Jan 2020=100