, Columnist
One Reason Workers’ Raises Aren’t Bigger
Productivity isn't growing enough.
Speed it up.
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For all the impressive performance of the U.S. job market, the failure of workers' wages to keep pace remains something of a mystery. It's a little easier to understand, though, if you consider how much those workers are producing.
By most indications, the demand for workers has reached the point where it should be pushing up wages more than it has. In September, nonfarm employers added 134,000 jobs and the unemployment rate declined to 3.7 percent, the lowest since 1969. Yet the average hourly wage was up just 2.8 percent from a year earlier, far short of the pace that prevailed in previous expansions. Here’s how that looks: