Reader JohnH offers a chart that seems to point out lagging median salaries. Nonetheless, his chart is inexplicably normalized within the 1st quarter of 2020, when the pandemic was in progress. Right here is identical collection, log-normalized to the NBER peak in This autumn 2019.
Determine 1: CES common weekly actual earnings (blue), median weekly actual earnings (tan), all in $1982-84, in logs 2019Q4=0. The NBER has outlined peak-to-trough recession dates as shaded. Supply: BLS by way of FRED, NBER and writer’s calculations.
The CES Q1 2023 common wage is 6% larger than the NBER peak, whereas the CPS median wage is 3% larger.