WOODS: Even economists who work for organizations championing lower-income workers have been happier with this kind of moderate wage growth, economists like Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute.
HEIDI SHIERHOLZ: I am definitely cheering it on. It is so odd. Like, I have devoted my career to caring about the living standards of low- and middle-income workers, and yet, I’m very happy to see nominal wage growth come down over this recent period. So it is – that takes, like, a ton of explanation.
WOODS: Right. Yeah, that sounds like a paradox.
SHIERHOLZ: It sounds like a paradox. And on the surface of it, it sounds like a paradox. When you look in further, it’s absolutely not.
WOODS: Heidi says, first, let’s clean up our camera lens. We can see that workers are actually getting a better deal now. And that’s because last year, while wages were growing, inflation was growing even more. So the average worker was falling further behind. And in contrast, today, the situation is brighter for workers.
SHIERHOLZ: Their living standards are growing much faster because inflation isn’t eating away at their wages like it was before. So now we’re seeing workers seeing real wage growth.