>Yet despite little official slack in the labor market, wages remain
>basically stagnant in this business cycle upturn.
No they aren't really. The average real hourly wage is up 7% since mid-1995 - not a great performance over the course of 4.5 years, but not bad by recent U.S. history. Every decile of the wage distribution is up, for both men and women. At the end of 1989, the average real wage was off over 2% from 4.5 years earlier. TIght labor markets and a higher minimum wage do have an effect.
Doug