>i pulled the numbers off BLS. i fail to see anything unusually
>outstanding about wage growth. granted, i didn't get my calculator out,
Well that's kind of a limitation on your analysis, isn't it?
>but what i saw was a steady 3-4% increase in wages from year to year over
>the past decade.
I got my Excel calculator out, and it shows steady real wage gains (deflated by the CPI) since 1995.
> and i sure as heck didn't see growth in the low-level
>service/retail sector wages that max claims.
Private service sector wages are up in real terms, while manufacturing wages are roughly flat over the last 4 years. Max's colleague at EPI Jared Bernstein sent me his tabulations of real wages by gender and decile since the early 1970s, and they're all up.
> i'd say that it's precisely
>the issue, 7% compared to stagnant growth isn't anything to get excited
>over.
Who was getting excited? But 7% is a lot more than 0%, not to mention -2%.
Doug