Four More Items in the Wages Outpacing Prices Debate

Ben Casselman had a useful piece in the New York Times examining the extent to which wages have outpaced prices since the pandemic. While he notes that for most people, they almost certainly have, there are people for whom this is likely not the case.

In fact, this will always be the case, even in the best economy, which arguably is what we are seeing now, or at least best in half a century. But there are some additional points to the ones Casselman raised that are worth keeping in mind.

Low Wage Workers’ Wages Outpaced Food Inflation

First, Casselman notes that not everyone consumes the same basket of items. For lower income people, food is a larger share of their budget and food prices have risen more than the overall rate of inflation since the pandemic.

This is true, but it is important to keep in mind that the lowest paid workers have seen the largest wage gains since the pandemic. To take an example, non-supervisory workers in hotels and restaurants had a 32.0 percent increase in their average hourly pay from before the pandemic. Their pay averaged $14.92 an hour in February of 2020. It had risen to $19.69 an hour in September of this year.

That easily outpaced the 25.8 percent increase in food prices. No one would try to claim that someone earning $19.69 an hour today is doing well, but they are doing better than the person earning $14.92 an hour at the start of 2020. It would be hard not to score this person as being better off.

14 Million Homeowners Refinanced Their Mortgages

Casselman notes that the widely derided increase in house prices has not been bad news for everyone. Specifically, the two-thirds of households that own their home might actually be feeling pretty good that the value of their house has risen.

However, there is another aspect to this picture that is also worth noting. More than 14 million homeowners refinanced their mortgages, taking advantage of the low mortgage rates we saw from the start of the pandemic until the Fed began raising rates in March of 2022.

Those that didn’t borrow additional money with a cashout refinance are saving an average of $2,500 a year in interest payments. That would be a big deal for a family with an income around $80,000. For some reason these savings for a large number of middle-class families rarely get mentioned in discussions of people’s well-being.

The Number of People Working from Home Has Increased by Almost 20 Million Since the Pandemic

Working from home exploded during the pandemic. While it has fallen somewhat since the peak months of the shutdown period, the number of people working remotely is nearly 20 million more than the pre-pandemic number. This increase is nearly one-eighth of the workforce.

These people are saving thousands of dollars a year in commuting costs and other expenses associated with working in an office. They also are saving hundreds of hours a year in commuting time. Any assessment of whether we are better off would need to factor in the impact of the increased opportunity to work from home.

Consumers’ Buying Patterns Tell Us They Feel Better Off

One way to find out how people feel about the economy is to ask them. Another way is to see what they do.

The answers to the first question can be somewhat ambiguous (almost everyone seems to feel they are doing much better than the rest of the country). The answer to the second question is less ambiguous.

We see people buying more of just about everything. We have seen record levels of air travel in the last year. We also saw record levels of road travel on the summer holiday weekends.

We know numbers can be skewed by the buying patterns of a small number of rich people, but that story is hard to tell here. Wealthier people do fly disproportionately, but with peak summer travel nearing 3 million flights a day, we are looking far beyond the one percent. That story is even more clear with road travel, with more than 60 million people hitting the road on holiday weekends this summer.

We can also look to other areas of non-necessary spending that have seen big increases since the pandemic. Purchases of televisions was 79 percent higher in the third quarter of this year than in the last quarter before the pandemic. (This is quality adjusted, so it does not mean 79 percent more TVs.)

Inflation-adjusted purchases of restaurant meals was 10.5 percent higher last quarter than before the pandemic. Purchases at fast-food restaurants was 10.1 percent higher last quarter than before the pandemic. It’s hard to believe that the rich are driving spending at McDonalds and Subway.

In short, if we look at what people are spending, they do seem to be considerably better off than before the pandemic. Again, this is not true for everyone. Some people have lost jobs and are now forced to work for lower pay. Some people have become disabled and may be able to work less (often because of the pandemic), or not at all. But if we are trying to look at the big picture, consumption patterns seem to be telling us that people feel they are better off today than they were before the pandemic.

This first appeared on Dean Baker’s Beat the Press blog.