Weak Wages

While wages are increasing very slowly in response to the remarkably low unemployment rate, regrettably inflation is also rising and is at a six-year high. Real wage growth, which has been slowing since late 2016, was flat Y-o-Y in May and declined by 0.2% in June. This is surprising as we’re late in the cycle and 18Q2 GDP was probably the best since 14Q3. This will inevitably hurt consumer spending.