Kyle Risdahl

The Employment Cost Index is the official nomenclature for that little data point.

Shows it's a bit higher than inflation's running, so, you know, good for workers, but

Nothing to write home about either.

Marketplace's Sabri Beneshour is on that one.

A three and a half percent annual increase in wages and benefits is actually the lowest since 2021.

Erica Groschen is with Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

The jobs that are getting the biggest raises now are actually the ones that did not get those big raises during the pandemic.

What you've seen is catch up.

from the workers who are essentially left behind.

So, for example, unionized workers who did not get big raises back then because they were locked into multi-year contracts are finally getting them.

Government workers also doing better.

Leisure and hospitality workers, though, who saw huge wage gains during the pandemic, they are now not seeing that.

Now what's catching up are wages more for the white-collar workers, the managerial workers, et cetera.

Overall, and for most people, wage growth has been faster than inflation, but not by much.

Wages are winning by about a half a percent, the smallest margin in two years.

There isn't much momentum in terms of real wage growth.

Gregory Dacco is chief economist at EY Parthenon.

He says inflation is nipping at the heels of lower and median income families the most.

There is paradoxically, though, a bright side to slowing wage growth.

It means the labor market isn't driving inflation.