How much money we're making – July 2020
Bottom Line: In today's third story breaking down the employment report we'll look at what ordinarily is the fun stuff...how much more money we're making. Unlike the job gains, which were record setting and pervasive through all demographics, this story is more of a mixed bag. The average hourly wage for all Americans is currently $29.37. With an average work week of 34.5 hours, the average income is now $52,689. All of those numbers are a decline from a month ago. It’s not a surprise to see hourly earnings back off a bit from their record highs of a month ago, as many service sector jobs have come back with reopening's, however it is a bit disappointing to see the average hours worked dip a bit as well. Still, for those who are able to work right now, they’re generally doing about as well as ever.
Here are the details:
- Hourly earnings down 35 cents per hour
- Average earnings +5.2% year over year
- Average person in the workforce is earning $2,781 more than a year ago
This is very much a case of the haves and the have nots. In this case, if you’re employed, the news is generally very positive. The average person in the workforce who is employed, and was a year ago, is earning greater than 5% more – that's extremely strong. It also points to another encouraging trend. Despite isolated cases, companies, industries – which have pushed pay decreases through for those who’ve remained employed...most haven’t. Additionally, we’re seeing furloughed employees come back to work at the same rate of pay as before the pandemic. This is an encouraging indicator that most businesses believe the economic harm of the virus will be temporary and they want to retain their employees – rather than risk losing them to other companies through pay decreases. If this holds and we can continue to make progress in future months, even if not record setting as the last two have been, there’s reason for optimism as we head down the home stretch of 2020.