The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Consumer Price Index for November 2014 today, which lets us look at trends in real (inflation-adjusted) wages. The figure below shows real average hourly earnings of all private employees (top line) and production/nonsupervisory workers (bottom line) since the recession began in December 2007. For both series, you can see that real wages fell during the recession, then jumped up in late 2008, in direct response to a drop in inflation. When inflation falls and nominal wages hold steady, the mathematical result is a rise in inflation-adjusted wages. After the deflation leading up to 2009 stopped boosting real wages, wage growth has been flat.

In the past month, we have also started to see falling prices, particularly with respect to gas prices. If nominal wage growth holds in the coming months, it may mean a rise in real wages. But so far, the data indicates that over the last year, real wage growth has continued to be stagnant. Average hourly earnings of private sector workers were $24.66 in November, and real hourly earnings averaged $24.51 over the last year. These wages are no better than we saw in the year ending November 2009 or November 2010, where average hourly earnings were $24.60 and $24.61, respectively. As shown in the figure below, real wage growth has been about zero on average for the last five years, and there is no sign of acceleration.