{"id":930,"date":"2018-04-30T23:00:57","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T03:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=930"},"modified":"2018-04-30T23:00:57","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T03:00:57","slug":"wages-are-finally-rising-at-a-healthy-clip-except-for-middle-class-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=930","title":{"rendered":"Wages are finally rising at a healthy clip \u2014 except for middle-class workers"},"content":{"rendered":"
By\u00a0Evan Horowitz<\/a><\/span>\u00a0GLOBE STAFF\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>
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BRENNAN LINSLEY\/ASSOCIATED PRESS<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Behind all the good economic news of recent years, from rising GDP to shrinking unemployment, there has been one stubborn and persistent sign of weakness: limited wage gains for US workers. But that may finally be changing \u2014 at least, for those outside the middle class.<\/p>\n

Average wages in the private sector rose\u00a0nearly 3 percent<\/a>\u00a0between the early 2017 and the beginning of 2018, according to data released Friday by the Labor Department. That\u2019s vastly better than the roughly 2 percent annual raises that have typified our long recovery since 2010.<\/p>\n

Even better, the gains seem to be spreading across regions and industries, with benefits to higher-wage and lower-wage earners alike.<\/p>\n

Nearly every area of the country saw wage gains approaching that 3 percent figure, from the Northeast to the Deep South \u2014 and up and down the West Coast.<\/p>\n

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And it\u2019s not just executives, managers, and other high-income folks who are benefitting. Some of the biggest gains are flowing into the pockets of low earners.<\/p>\n

Over the past year, lower-wage workers have actually seen their paychecks\u00a0rise slightly faster<\/a>than those at the top \u2014 and far faster than those in the middle. The gap is especially pronounced among lower-wage women, whose earnings have jumped a remarkable 4.6 percent since last year.<\/p>\n

The one group cut out from this boon is the American middle class, which hasn\u2019t seen the same uptick in earnings. Wages for middle-income workers rose less than 2 percent in the past year \u2014 and a bleak 1.6 percent for men. It\u2019s hard to know why, exactly, the middle class is struggling. Perhaps they\u2019re concentrated in industries \u2014 like health and education \u2014 that are lagging behind the rising wage-growth trend.<\/p>\n

Or it could be a temporary blip, a final pause before middle-class workers get their share of today\u2019s economic growth \u2014 especially if the labor market continues to tighten, and businesses need to poach already-employed workers using tantalizing pay packages.<\/p>\n

But the latest wage figure suggest this is the one task left, before our long recovery can be rightly celebrated as the best of economic times: end the stagnation that has held down median wages\u00a0for decades<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Evan Horowitz digs through data to find information that illuminates the policy issues facing Massachusetts and the U.S. He can be reached at\u00a0evan.horowitz@globe.com<\/a>. Follow him on Twitter\u00a0@GlobeHorowitz<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Evan Horowitz\u00a0GLOBE STAFF\u00a0\u00a0APRIL 30, 2018 EVAN HOROWITZ | QUICK STUDY BRENNAN LINSLEY\/ASSOCIATED PRESS Behind all the good economic news of recent years, from rising GDP…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":932,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gopplaybook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/2018-04-30_23-00-15.jpg?fit=715%2C474&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8VBh7-f0","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":992,"url":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=992","url_meta":{"origin":930,"position":0},"title":"Here\u2019s how Sarah Sanders responded to reports of a White House staffer mocking John McCain","author":"Donnie","date":"May 12, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"By\u00a0Christina Prignano\u00a0GLOBE STAFF \u00a0\u00a0MAY 11, 2018 EVAN VUCCI\/ASSOCIATED PRESS White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. 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