Line
Real Hourly Wages
Average hourly earnings adjusted for consumer prices, private employers, monthly, 1982–84 dollars
Plays the chart through its history. Pauses are where the data set a record or moved most.
Bureau of Labor Statistics Real Earnings release: average hourly earnings deflated by the CPI for urban wage earners and clerical workers (CPI-W). Production and nonsupervisory workers are about four in five private employees, excluding managers.
Whether pay is keeping up with prices. Real wages jumped in 2020 when low-paid jobs vanished first, fell through the 2021–2022 inflation, then recovered as price growth slowed. A falling line means prices are rising faster than paychecks.
What this chart reads
- U.S. Real Average Hourly Earningsas “All private employees”latest 2026-09-01
- U.S. Real Average Hourly Earnings, Production and Nonsupervisoryas “Production and nonsupervisory”latest 2026-09-01
Sources
U.S. Real Average Hourly Earnings. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Real Earnings release, series CES0500000013, pulled from the BLS public data API. BLS data are in the public domain; source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
U.S. Real Average Hourly Earnings, Production and Nonsupervisory. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Real Earnings release, series CES0500000032, pulled from the BLS public data API. BLS data are in the public domain; source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Charts are drawn from Palanor's signal library and recomputed from source data on every view. Transformations (changes, indexing, year-on-year rates) are Palanor's.