Bloomberg Surveillance · Saturday, September 5, 2026
Despite a strong jobs report, American workers are losing ground as average hourly earnings are not keeping pace with inflation. While some measures of average weekly wages may show growth, the general price level remains high, indicating a continued decline in real wages for most people.
“The bottom line is there's a wage and there's this inflation. 100% of the people I talk to say, I'm losing ground every single month.”
“Basically, average hourly earnings are running below and have been for a couple of months, the inflation rate. And so, yes, you're losing ground.”
“They're losing ground because the level of prices isn't going down. We may see a slowdown in the change, the monthly change, but the level of price is still high.”