— Admin @ 12:03 am — 
February 10, 2010Consumer wages are stagnant and will probably stay that way for a while. That was the verdict of the U.S. Labor Department. The Labor Department evaluated the average hourly earnings of non-supervisory and production workers in the private sector and found that wages are not moving much right now with only 3 cents an hour added in December compared to November 2009.
Hourly earnings have only gone up by 2.2 percent over the last year. This means consumers have actually lost ground because the Consumer Price Index for November 2008 to November 2009 rose 2.3 percent.
The Labor Department also looked at average weekly wages and found the same stagnation. The average weekly earnings have only gone up by $1. The figure now stands at $624.16 per week.