WASHINGTON — Pay and benefits for America's workers grew at a healthy but more gradual pace in the final three months of 2022, a third straight slowdown, which could help reassure the Federal Reserve that wage gains won't fuelWages and benefits, such as health insurance, grew 1% in the October-December quarter compared with the previous three months. That marked a solid gain, though it was slower than the 1.2% increase in the July-September quarter.
Powell has said that he sees rapid wage gains, particularly in the labor-intensive service sector, as the biggest impediment to bringing inflation down to the Fed’s 2% target. When restaurants, hotels,and other services companies raise pay, they often pass along those higher costs by charging their customers higher prices.
On an annual basis, wages and benefits grew 5.1% in the fourth quarter compared with a year earlier. That matched last year’s April-June figure as the strongest such figure in the roughly two decades that the data has been tracked. With the unemployment rate matching a 53-year low, businesses rapidly raised pay to try to attract and keep workers.Strong wage gains, though beneficial for workers, tend to fuel high inflation.
Last quarter, Hunter noted, wage growth slowed particularly sharply for restaurant, hotel and entertainment workers, a group that has enjoyed some of the biggest pay gains. With many companies in those industries struggling to fill jobs, pay and benefits grew 0.9% in the fourth quarter — exactly half its pace of the previous quarter. That suggested that labor demand is declining even in areas of the economy that remain most eager to fill jobs.
What good has all of this raise the minimum and now all gone to INFLATION ? My gas now up almost a $1 in a mo WHY? One is Ga Gov gave back the .30 state tax he kept off. Other rising around WORLD WHY?
‘Healthy’ but ‘gradual’. The key words twirling from the usual Yahoo liberal spin😀