Wrong again! While wages haven't been growing at a huge rate over the last 8 years (thanks to the Bush recession and the time it took to get out of it), wages have increased
"What's Happened to Wages & Income?
"Wages have grown faster over the past few years than at any time in the past forty,"
President Obama wrote recently in an exit memo addressed to the American people. Could this really be true?
Average hourly wages
increased 2.9% in 2016. That's better than
2015 (2.3%) and 2014 (2.1%). But wage growth of
2% is essentially no wage growth at all once inflation is factored in. Wages generally grow 3% to 4% during normal (non-recession) years. According to the
Economic Policy Institute, if wages had grown at a consistent 3.5% annually since the Great Recession, the average worker would be making $29.07 per hour, versus the actual average of $26 an hour today.
From 2014 to 2015, America's real median household income (which factors in inflation) saw its
biggest increase since such data started being recorded, in 1968. The median household earned $56,500 in 2015, an increase of 5% over the prior year—amounting to an extra $2,800 in income. This data, we suppose, is what Obama was focusing on with his comments concerning the pace of wage growth in recent years.
In the grand scheme, household income has been pretty stagnant.
Census Bureau data shows that when everything is converted into 2015 dollars, the median household income in 2007 was $57,423. In other words, typical American households have been earning more lately than they were a few years ago, but still less than they were before the recession."
Here's What Really Happened to Jobs During the Obama Years - Time
time.com/money/4636761/jobs-barack-obama-presidency/