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progree

(12,829 posts)
2. Employment Cost index - considred the best statistic on wages/salaries and benefits, and the Federal Reserve's favorite
Thu Feb 12, 2026, 10:47 PM
Thursday

source on the same.

Here is the link to the latest BLS report: https://www.bls.gov/eci/

Some context:

The ECI shows changes in wages and benefits in a manner that fixes the composition of the workforce. This is important, particularly when there are large changes in employment, because these data are not subject to the same distortions as the monthly average hourly earnings series, which can artificially be increased when low-wage workers lose their jobs and drop out of the sample (as happened in 2020) or artificially be decreased when these same workers are hired back (as happened in 2021) [1].

By fixing workforce composition, the ECI provides a more accurate picture of what is actually happening to wages.

[1] The Pandemic’s Effect on Measured Wage Growth, The WHite House, 4/19/21 ((Biden era))
. . . Original link now gone, thanks to Krasnov: https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/04/19/the-pandemics-effect-on-measured-wage-growth/
. . . The Archive.org link: https://web.archive.org/web/20220208080743/https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/04/19/the-pandemics-effect-on-measured-wage-growth/

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