|
America’s 40th president used to say that he knew his program of tax relief and deregulation was working when the press corps stopped calling it “Reaganomics.” Today we have a White House tax policy that is more muddled—income tax cuts partly offset by trade tax increases. Yet President Donald Trump’s deregulation makes one wonder if media folk may soon stop writing about affordability. Reducing the weight of the Washington bureaucracy liberates businesses to produce more goods and services, which leads to higher compensation for employees who are finally allowed to be more productive. For workers, nothing makes life more affordable than the phenomenon of wages
rising faster than inflation, and that’s exactly the situation we now enjoy in the U.S. The federal Labor Department reports today: Real average hourly earnings for all employees increased 0.3 percent from December to January, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. America got a real raise last month, and wages have also been rising faster than inflation for the past year. BLS notes: From January 2025 to January 2026, real average hourly earnings increased 1.2 percent, seasonally adjusted. The change in real average hourly earnings combined with a 0.6-percent increase in the average workweek resulted in a 1.9-percent increase in real average weekly earnings over this period.
|
