Thanks to the reader that pointed out the story on CNN regarding the recently released statistics on wages.
Real wages are not exactly going through the roof.
For the 24-month period through the second quarter of 2005, the inflation-adjusted wages of an average American grew just 1 percent or so, according to statistics reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Despite overall sluggish wage growth, there are still areas of strength; the majority of the 316 largest counties in the United States — those with employee rolls of 75,000 or more — reported average wage increases that outpaced inflation for the 24 months ended June 30, 2005, the latest county data available from the BLS. Forty four of the counties had real wage growth of 3 percent or more during the period.
…
County State 2003 Wages 2005 Wages Nominal Change Real Change Spokane WA $573 $617 7.68% 1.68% Snohomish WA $725 $775 6.90% 0.94% Kitsap WA $638 $681 6.74% 0.79% Yakima WA $481 $509 5.82% -0.07% Thurston WA $653 $689 5.51% -0.37% Pierce WA $642 $676 5.30% -0.57% Clark WA $657 $690 5.02% -0.83% King WA $950 $933 -1.79% -7.26%
Yes that’s right, of the 309 counties for which both 2003 and 2005 data is available, our very own King County ranked #308—second from last. In case you were wondering, the median price of a house in King County shot up 27% during that same period.
Update: I added the other counties from Washington state to the table above to give additional context. As you can see, none of the counties in the greater Puget Sound area have been performing particularly well in the wage growth department, although none have been performing nearly as dismally as King. Yay for us.
(Les Christie, CNNMoney.com, 01.30.2006)