Shocking data revision by feds: Americans’ wages dropped 4.2% instead of rising in the first quarter - Thomas Lifson

by Thomas Lifson

This shocking news – was buried in a report on second-quarter earnings and has barely registered in the nation’s media

Wages for Americans are dropping at a rapid rate, instead of rising as the feds had claimed.  This shocking news – making President Obama’s claim that the economy has recovered from the great recession laughable – was buried in a report on second-quarter earnings and has barely registered in the nation’s media, which are anxious to elect Hillary Clinton.
Neil Munro of Breitbart summarizes the changes:

“Real hourly compensation decreased 0.4 percent after revision, rather than the previously-published increase of 4.2 percent,” the BLS admitted. Compensation also fell another 1.4 percent in the second quarter, from April to June, the BLS admitted in the same report. That’s 2 percent drop in wages since December.
Pay shrank 0.3 percent in 2013, rose a mere 1.1 percent in 2014, but rose a promising 2.7 percent in 2015, according to the BLS.

Based on the erroneous data, President Obama has been taking victory laps on the economy.

In June, Obama cited the mistaken 2016 wage-growth claim while arguing the economy was finally helping ordinary Americans. “Let’s get wages rising faster,” Obama declared in a speech at Concord Community High School, Elkhart, Indiana.

I also know that I’ve spent every single day of my presidency focused on what I can do to grow the middle class and increase jobs, and boost wages … Here’s the good news: Wages are actually growing at a rate of about 3 percent so far this year. That’s the good news. Working Americans are finally getting a little bigger piece of the pie. But we’ve got to accelerate that.

That speech was advertised as his first speech of the 2016 campaign, and he continued his wage-boosting theme during his July 27 speech at the Democratic Convention;

If you’re really concerned about pocketbook issues and seeing the economy grow, and creating more opportunity for everybody, then the choice isn’t even close. If you want someone with a lifelong track record of fighting for higher wages, and better benefits, and a fairer tax code, and a bigger voice for workers … you should vote for Hillary Clinton.

Don’t expect Obama to revise his comments, and don’t expect the media to inform the public that wages are falling fast.  Voters will have to figure that out for themselves, unless Donald Trump starts harping on wages in his speeches.  And even then…

Thomas Lifson

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/08/shocking_data_revision_by_feds_americans_wages_emdroppedem_42_instead_of_rising_in_the_first_quarter.html

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