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Earnings Shocker: Quarterly Increase In Wages Is Smallest On Record
The quarterly increase in US wages was just 0.2% - a third of the 0.6% rise expected - and a meager 2% increase Y/Y in line with all the other depressed BLS data, which dashes the "wage growth is looming" meme and crushed the 0.7% rise in Q1 that had so many hopeful of escape velocity any day now.
Because the ECI tracks the same job over time, it removes shifts in the mix of workers across industries, which is a shortcoming of the hourly earnings figures, which makes this number even more of a diaster. This is the weakest US wage growth since records begain in 1982 and half as slow as the weakest of 57 economist estimates.
Fed officials are “still looking at a lot of slack remaining in the job market,” Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James Financial Inc. in St. Petersburg, Florida, said before the report. “If the numbers sort of fall back a bit, that might push the Fed toward a later rate increase than September.”
The median forecast of 57 economists surveyed projected a 0.6 percent increase for the total ECI index. Last quarter’s reading was lower than all estimates, which ranged from increases of 0.4 percent to 0.8 percent. The gauge measures employer-paid taxes such as Social Security and Medicare in addition to the costs of wages and benefits.
This was lower than the lowest economist estimates:
But... but... they promised...
As Valentin Marinov of Credit Agricole previewed:
Today's US data could be quite important as well with market focus likely to be on the Employment Cost Index (ECI) - easily the most comprehensive measure of wages in the economy.
Evidence of further ECI growth would be consistent with mounting wage pressures against the background of subdued trend economic growth and dissipating slack in the labour market. In turn, it would strengthen the case for lift-off sooner rather than later. USD could extend its gains broadly with markets also positioning ahead of the all-important NFP release next week.
Alterantively, the just reported complete lack of "evidence" confirms what we have been saying for years - there is no wage growth in an economy converted to a "part-time worker", minimum wage job society.
So given it is a total disaster, this suggest September is off the table, unless of course Yellen decides this is transitory record lows: here is a preview - "workers were underpaid because it was abnormally hot"
Of course there is a simple explanation for this collapse in wage growth, despite the talking heads proclamations that job gains are extraordinarily positive, what is really taking place is the surge in ultra low paying jobs while high-paying, manufacturing (and now oil-related) jobs are being crushed.
Another great rotation for the American economy to low paid service jobs.
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This is the weakest US wage growth since records begain in 1982
USA USA USA!!!
Jeb and Hillary.......Hillary and Jeb!!!
And what was that stupid fucking poll here yesterday saying how happy workers are with their jobs now!!?
DUUHH!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-30/why-do-so-many-working-age-amer...
"No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up." - Lily Tomlin
DavidC
If you are a wage earner, you are en-trapped.
The total disparity of just two things, SHOCKING:
NASA Budget + Pentagram Budget Vs. "Nation-building" spending
Same here in India, frigging 4th or 5th largest global arms budget, also a fraud Space program.
Iron Mountain, Report from....has had us by our starry eyes...
Free...hehhhhh....
https://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/freedumbs-just-another-word/
OT. SILVER SPIKING UP
BTW cool music ORI
RIPS
Both your comments music to my ears there DR...cheers...
am i rite in understanding this palty wage rise is even with the mandatory bump in the minimum wage? coz if so it shows wage deflation for medium- higher earners
Then why bother giving in to it?
Just because you're disaffected, doesn't mean you should spread the negative vibes to everybody else, Mr Killjoy.
Why, I was happy just sitting here watching the Watchmen for the 7th time.
Why work 50+ hour weeks to still be poor, when you can work 0 hours and be poor. Wage shrinkage is the true death spiral of our economy.
I'm amazed by how many people who are "poor" or on public assistance drive really nice cars...
Oh, you noticed the same thing, huh? They don't dress too shoddy, have Big Assed Screen TV's, eat all sorts of expensive crap, drink lots of booze .... ah, fuck it.
Lemme tell y'all what fucking poor is. From IMF/or the like data series, if you make $US 25,000 before taxes, you're in the Global Upper 1%
Amen, 'nucks. The 'poor' of America are wealthy by global standards. I've seen the barrio first hand in Caracas and the stenchy poverty of China's back-streets. Americans and the west in general have no idea what poor really is. If all the money wasted on 'wants' was transfered to 'needs' there would be little poverty left in America.
We're going to move quickly to New Normalize rates. Immediately, we're setting the Fed Funds Rate at -10% in order to jump start this ebullient economy, bounding with employment opportunities and to better utilize all the veritable plethora of stuff that just last year we'd thought would be gone by now. Like oil, coal, immigrants and bankers.
#MIDDLECLASSLIVESMATTER
#bringbackourmiddleclass
The American growth miracle, beating estimates all the way to the bottom.
One need look no further than the white house with the 1/2-black man to see why. He hates the 'imperialist' west.
Wage Slaves are on sale
Mr. Obama......tear down that border fence!
What fence?
-POTUS
All those folks that think we will see hyperinflation, forget it.
Do you see ANY workers taking their pay home in wheelbarrows ?
Ain't gonna happen. DEFLATION
Any problems in the petro dollar or reserve currency status...hello fiat tidal wave.. regardless of deflationary factors. If FRNs aren't accepted thats infinite inflation
No no no...
It's MASSIVE, EPIC, BIBLICAL CRUSHING DEFLATION IMPLOSION..
Followed by a massive comet impact for good measure.
And an ice age
it is all Tom Brady's fault!
Deflate-Gate! Kudos!
Did someone say anything about baby parts being sold.....yeah.....I didin't think so.
Helps keep the price of exotic drugs down.
(I guess I'd best /cynical sarc)
And just think of all the new jobs, chopping living innocent children into salable parts, bagging them, weighing and labeling them, sales people, website designers, video conference calls displaying the quality of work. Boundless!
And the White House ran to the defense. It's all for the children.
Ok, so what's the problem?
Zero Rate Death Spiral
we'll see what happens if QE4 kicks off and foreign governments start redeeming their treasury bonds...or when the global central bank unsterilized bond monetization circle jerk ends...or if the Yuan is added to the SDR basket lowering the weight of the dollar...or when more oil is purchased globally in currencies other than the dollar. I don't expect wheelbarrows of money but wouldn't be surprised by a 30% devaluation.
Nah ... The rest of the CB's will be printing at light speed as well.
America, believe it or not, is the actually "Bright Spot" in the Global Economy, and that sure as shit ain't saying much at all. Europe, Asia/China, BRICS, commodity producers .... it all suxs the hairy end of the lillipop
"In a fiat or paper currency regime you can always generate positive levels of inflation" - The Bernank
"Depends on what the meaining of always is always."
-Hillary's Hubbie
I think Maloney says and explains it best. We are in deflation. We have been in deflation. Post the USD/FRN collapse, we will have hyperinflation .. Global, and 12x worse than Weimar or Zimbabwe ..
Luckily we have vanquished inflation from the land of the free - so who needs a wage increase?
Fed says inflation in USA was 0.8% in 2014. Chapwood Index says it was 9.7%.
http://www.chapwoodindex.com/
yeah I hear deflations soo bad that they need a pay raise.
RIPS
At what point does all this bad data become bad? The US indices just spiked upwards on this because...no prizes for guessing.
DavidC
Just get two more jobs and that'll cover it.
So to confirm everyone needs to go out and buy US treasuries and other govt debts debt...
quck their safe..
Is it not possible all the money they have printed and zero rates has just lead to a saturation of industry.
Ie maybe the oil industry would have been better off with higher rates so only viable projects would have been implemented,
avoiding creating excessive supply and saturating the market.
ie the low rates and never ending bailouts are the problem not the solution.
To a liberal it's Bush's fault.
To a conservative, ALL the minorities.
I personally just can't wait for the trickle-down of 0% rates. I want mine, too. Gimme gimme gimme
LaVornga LOVES it..Just tweeted wage growth is avg 2% y/y...ooooo
Since Lehman or 1982.........
They don't need increasing wages, as long as the USD rises it's a wage increase on itself.
Obama annouces via pravada, take your pick...NYT, WP, WSJ....that full employment has been reached!
the real question is what will bonuses be and which Obama cabinet members get to "work" at Goldman
You people sound like a bunch of Nazi crybabies. Newsflash, you lost World War II and now it's time to accept your place you sick white goyim. I'm glad that the undocumented workers from south of the border and the H1Bs are taking your jobs for pennies on the dollar. I can't wait until President Jeb Bush implements Comprehensive Immigration Reform and all of you racist Nazi bastards totally lose control of the nation that was once yours.
#cuckservative @barbara_spectre #endwhitepeople
You just went fult tilt retard.......never do that.
Well, it really used to be the Indians (feather, not dot) so it's just some overdue Karma, anyhow.
Ha ha! It's gonna be Hillary Clinton!
If this is not a racist post then what is? You claim to have a vigorously enforced racism policy and yet... I presume, like everything else, racism against whites does not exist.
Duplicity is alive and well even here at the Hedge.
Tyler, I am disappointed in you.
Pay me in stawks... heheh
This economy is like battery acid
Good for taking rust stains out of the toilet.
“If the numbers sort of fall back a bit, that might push the Fed toward a later rate increase than September.” Sort of? Might? Might? The Fed is bad enough. Even the friggin' analysts hedge everything they say when it's right in their face. I'd get a better committment from any ZH reader. They need to rename the country to 'The United States of Hedgerica'.
Sadly, this contagion has metastasized.
http://bangordailynews.com/2015/07/30/news/penobscot/millinocket-places-...
I blame the failure of the Apple Watch, without a must-have consumer item, like yo-yos in the 70s, subwoofers in the 80s and SUVs in the 90s, employers have no reason to raise wages to retain staff.
INDICTMENT
Americans are criminals because Americans violate the Constitution of the United States of America.
The U.S. President Obama, the entire U.S. Congress, the CIA, the FBI, the U.S. Military, and the entire Police Force of these United States SWORE to protect, serve and uphold the U.S. Constitution.
The U.S. Constitution forbids usage of debt as money (referred to as 'notes') and stipulates that only gold and silver can be used as money.
Yet,
Americans commit or support and condone the murder and torture human beings throughout planet earth in the name of democracy and freedom, all for the sake of acquiring Constitutionally fraudulent and illegal Federal Reserve Notes a.k.a (counterfeit) U.S. Dollars.
Since the United States is a democracy and Americans only elect Democrats and Republicans who perpetuate this unlawfulness,
Americans are indicted criminals according to the United States Constitution.
Spread the word.
The 'middle class,' (that's most of us) could wake the hell up and make efforts to redirect its own course - simply by changing it buying habits. Ask anyone where their shirt or blouse was made. Or their pants or underwear. Or why they're feel oh-so-compelled to spend all that money on a monthly basis to 'stay connected.'
Without knowing it they control of their own destiny. They should consider as evidence of their laziness the giant import ships that come full from China and various other parts of the world coming here with goods that are not American made - jobs that have been exported to other countries. All made possible by the American buying habits.
Punish those "American' brands' that sell products not made in the USA by not buying their products. For those that do spend time on the internet. Search down products made in the USA. If you think this is a joke, explain how there is any other way out of this economic, social implosion.
Sounds good, but in practice, you can't. Show me any consumer electronics made in USA. Show me where to buy these US goods. There are virtually none. And any company that attempts to do it here is garroted by the government just for trying. Case in point: Yankee Candle. They tried to "do the right thing" and build a plant in the US, after making their candles overseas for years. The government all but bankrupted them with ridiculous delays and stacks of bullshit permits. The company president said, if he had it to do again, he wouldn't. So it's not the choice of the US buyer driving business back to the US. It's the chicken shit regulatory climate put in place here by government elitists. It's the reason companies left in the first place. Highest corporate taxes in the world. Want to fix it, really? First, screw Wall St. and the banks. Put a sound banking system back in place here. Pass Glass Steagall with all its testosterone. Lower corporate tax rates. Most importantly, screen all legislation passed in the last ten years that congress has passed to favor large corporations and bar entry of new competitors, and repeal it. Give company startups here a fighting chance.
Funny, you missed the part about low, low wages over the border. Why you do that?
Silverer,
I don't disagree but I would argue further that a buy US mindset could result in both a culture change but also a politcal change. As you have indicated legislative, tax, and regulation barriers tilt the advantage against US manufacturing - but I still lay a lot of blame on the middle class, itself. They still think they can discount their way to prosperity while all the evidence is to the contrary.
And mine is defintely not a pro-union rant. My gosh, the unions have been part of the social and economic suicide. But we need real jobs for real people making acceptable wages as they make every type of good we need - not just the too often false promise of 'the high tech job.' 90% of the 'high tech' we use isn't even needed. Its simply a society wide acceptance of the most sucessful marketing campaign the country has ever known.
Aside from the astounding recurring payment money drain, in truth, the 'stay connected' movement is a central reason for the countries lack of productivity. It passifies the least productive with the pretense that they're 'staying involved' with useless interaction that falsely claims to help them.
Congratulations, Barry. Mission accomplished.
Congratulations, Barry. Mission accomplished.
If you ever wondered why Bosh hugged Obama before he got on the helicopter.....now you know.
No surprise here. What with dot gov confiscating 40% of small business profits, they are taking away the seed corn that would have been used to plant new fields and hire people at good wages.
I know, I run a business. Huge tax hits.
My response? Got rid of my employees, and I go fishing more. No sense working my ass off to expand or hire people only to have the fruits of my efforts stripped from me.
Instead, I choose to enjoy my limited time remaining in life.
I and a million other small business owners have gone Galt.
You want Socialism? You can keep your Socialism. Good luck!
Fish on!
We already have socialism the printing press is subsidising the unproductive against the productive.
I fish too
RIPS
Atlas Shrugged and went fishing. I can dig it.
I considered starting a small business several years ago. I contacted my local Chamber of Commerce, and they sent me the little 'packet'...
It was thick as a phone book. Page after page after PAGE of nit-picking, overly-anal lists of regulations and forms and payment schedules...payment schedules for the quarterly taxes they expected me to ESTIMATE and send in every 3 months!!??
Who are they kidding? Yeah, COC, sure, let me just pass that on to my accounting dept...
So, I can either pay someone to do all that extra paperwork for me, or fuck it up all on my own and get hit with some stupid penalty for some bullshit "offense" they pull out of their ass...
Well, not being a believer in the TINA doctrine, I have opted for a third option. I'll go ahead and do my little thing out of my home and online, and NOT fill out all this paperwork. And I'll just continue paying my little taxes in April, once a year, as I have for the past 40+ years now...If things work out, I'll let someone know, and then we can talk about some of the ideas in their little 'packet'. But don't even BOTHER with that quarterly-tax thing, save THAT bullshit for your big internationals. Unless I'm Warren Buffet, I pay YEARLY, like everybody else, and you all can just WAIT the fucking 12 months to spend my fucking money!
They are so determined to force everybody into their endlessly complex world...I have ZERO desire to be a "businessman" in the sense these people want. I am primarily a 'hobbyist' who is starting to outgrow my living quarters. If it should take off, maybe I'd become more business-oriented, who knows?
But not like THIS. Burying a novice in piles of bullshit paperwork, and fucking up their cash flow every three months is NOT a way to encourage people to try their hand at business. Leave these folks alone! If they are successful, there'll be plenty of time for 'milking' them. But no, they want to slap those tittie-nozzles right on the minute you even suggest doing something independently lucrative.
So I won't get the deductions. I'm fine with that. I figure it pays for itself in peace of mind, and CPA fees. Of course this will make it harder to figure out if I owe any taxes, and how much, since I don't have to bother with all that detailed record-keeping now, and I'm a primarily cash operation...oh well, that's what happens when you insist on micro-managing everything, you just turn people like me right off.
If I'm in that mind-set of wanting to do this, I'M doing YOU a favor. YOU will benefit should I be successful, through the taxes I'd pay, perhaps even the people I'd employ. So why are we talking about what I owe YOU for the 'privilege' of trying it?
Stuff it up your ass, Chamber of Commerce.
no raises for us this year.
I've lost track of how often this has happened over the past 8 years of recovery.
No Soup for you!
WHY AREN'T PEOPLE WORKING?
THERE ARE NO JOBS.
http://www.usworldreport.com/maine-drops-9000-from-food-stamps-after-the...
Republican Gov. Paul LePage recently began enforcing Maine’s volunteer and work requirements for food stamp SNAP recipients to keep their benefits. The end result was more than 9,000 non-disabled adults getting dropped from the program.
The rules prevent adults who are not disabled and do not have dependents from receiving food stamps for more than three months, unless they work at least 20 hours a week, participate in a work-training program, or meet volunteer guidelines for 24 hours out of the month. Any one of those three getting met will not result in the loss of their SNAP food benefits.
Let me emphasize. The least difficult of those three, is fulfilling an approved volunteer work load of just 24 hours out of an entire month. The hardest, is doing at least 20 hours of on the job work per week. Hey, only volunteering 24 hours per month is a seriously good deal to receive hundreds of dollars of free food. The average SNAP monthly benefit is approximately $477.88 per month for a four person household size. In most cases it’s even more. For 24 hours of volunteering, that’s making about $19.91 per hour. Nice!
In Maine, 9,000 so-called able-bodied people who are too poor to feed themselves couldn’t handle that. Even more of a drastic measure, people in Maine who lose their benefits in such a manner can’t regain assistance for three years.
Liberals have sold government dependence so deliberately well, that even doing 24 hours of approved volunteer work a month for a capable adult became too much for more than 9,000 people. If it seems like I’m parroting these numbers again and again, you must realize the implications are staggering. Who in their right mind would turn down such a deal? Actually wanting a member of society to be productive in some reasonable way shouldn’t be too hard to meet!
Maine’s State Rep. Scott Hamann (D) has introduced a bill that would direct the administration to seek a waiver for certain counties with high unemployment or a lack of jobs… but wait one damned minute! That is what doing approved volunteer work is all about. If the jobs or training programs simply aren’t there because the economy is a superior mess, then why is it too hard to do 24 hours of volunteer work per freaking month?
LePage’s administration probably won’t support Hamann’s legislation, and with good reason. There should be plenty of volunteer community work in even the most economically depressed regions. Either the Liberals have truly brain washed the voting masses into droning zombies, or they’re really not that needy for food. Either way, the taxpayers who do have to work their butts off won’t have to support such mediocrity any longer.
================
This is an outstanding program and those who do the volunteer work should be helping those who are disabled to see what the system was meant to be. Plenty of snow to shovel etc..
LJ
How can there be so much "slack" if the employment situation says we're so close to full employment? Can some government talking head explain this for me? I am but a poor pleb with no understanding of weasel words and fabrications but something seems amiss.
The US economy is nowhere near "full employment". The UE rate is simply a meaningless statistical artifact. People who have been unemployed for a certain time period are simply no longer counted as unemployed - instead they are removed from the "labor force", as if they had vanished into thin air. One could well ask though, if they are not unemployed, what are they?
So the unemployment rate is low as claimed by BLS.
My boots on the ground see differently and its not good.