Wages Are Up—for Workers With Jobs

Avg. weekly pay hit $618 last month, up from $612
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 16, 2009 6:41 AM CDT
Wages Are Up—for Workers With Jobs
A customer uses a CitiBank ATM in Palo Alto, Calif., Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009.   (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

For those with the good fortune to have a job, wage growth has actually increased in recent months, government surveys show. From the fall of Lehman Brothers last September to this June, average weekly pay stayed at $612. But since June, the workweek has gotten longer and hourly pay growth has increased. Average weekly pay hit $618 last month, writes David Leonhardt  in the New York Times.

“Even though unemployment has reached its highest level in 26 years, most workers have received a raise over the last year,” Leonhardt notes. In fact, “in the job market, at least, the recession’s pain has been unusually concentrated." There's less churn than usual; those who are unemployed stay that way longer, but few are still being laid off, and most companies "have evidently decided that pay cuts aren’t worth the downside."


(More wages stories.)

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