Covered at Reason 24/7: U.S. Wages Have Yet To Recover from Recession

Good times are just around the corner, right? Well, maybe around the next corner. Jobs seem to be trickling back, however weakly. But wages are still below their pre-recession peak in 2007. Job losses may have been so deep that they weakened employee bargaining power, especially as demand for labor remains weak. But an Obamacare-induced shift to part-time work also seems to be killing take-home pay.

From Investors Business Daily:

As bad as the current job recovery has been — and it's by far the weakest since World War II — the recovery in wages has been far worse.

Five years after the recession began in December 2007, total wages in the economy have yet to fully recover in real terms, Commerce Department data show. In other words, the wage recession continues.

By comparison, the longest previous post-war wage recession, which began with the 2001 downturn, was over in 2-1/2 years, even though that jobs recession lasted four years.

Follow this story and more at Reason 24/7.

If you have a story that would be of interest to Reason's readers please let us know by emailing the 24/7 crew at [e-mail], or tweet us stories at @reason247.