Daniel Moss, Columnist

Wage Growth Is Flat. What If Workers Expected More?

Central banks are starting to nudge workers to demand higher pay. What a bizarre turn.

July 7, 2017 at 2:28 PM UTC

Daniel Moss is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian economies. Previously, he was executive editor for economics at Bloomberg News.

There's a cost to low expectations.
Photographer: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

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Disappointing wage growth has again tarnished an otherwise robust U.S. employment report.

The jobless rate, while it moved up a tad to 4.4 percent, is still below the level the Federal Reserve considers sustainable over the long term. And payrolls returned safely to adding more than 200,000 jobs in June. The American economy only needs to add barely half that per month to absorb new entrants into the labor market.