America’s putrid wage growth
“Average hourly wages for production and nonsupervisory workers (i.e. most people in the workforce) grew just 2.6 percent in the 12 months culminating in April 2018. That’s certainly better than the 1.2-percent pit this metric hit in late 2012. But wages were growing at 4 percent at the peak of the last business cycle, just before the economy cratered in 2008. Wage growth also hit 4 percent during the late-1990s boom, and at the end of the 1980s business cycle before that.”