Workers saw their wages and benefits rise slightly faster in 2010 than 2009, but the gain was still the second-lowest increase in nearly three decades.
via Workers saw 2 percent rise in wages and benefits – Yahoo! News.
A 2% raise … wow, I haven’t received a raise since 2007. I’m jealous, but I’m still employed.
Dagny's Desk 
Numbers Guy said:
Hi Dagny,
Every now and then a post grabs my attention and I dig a little into the story. This was one of those posts.
The yahoo article states that “Workers saw their wages and benefits rise slightly faster in 2010 than 2009, but the gain was still the second-lowest increase in nearly three decades.”. This is correct as far as it goes but it fails to point out that these results do not take into account inflation. Adjusting for inflation produces a more meaningful picture.
Fortunately, the Bureau of Labor Statistics also publishes inflation adjusted numbers here:
Click to access ecconstnaics.pdf
Click to access echistry.pdf
( The two reports use slightly different rules for calculation and overlap for 2001-2005 but the results are only slightly different ).
When you look at the numbers after adjustment for inflation you see that 2009, 2007, 2005, 2004, 1996, 1995, 1994, 1990, 1989, and 1987 *all* had lower wages and benefits increases than 2010. In fact, in many of these years the “increase” was negative. In inflation adjusted terms, 2010 was unremarkable. Now, 2009 on the other hand was the worst year by either measure since 1982.
Here’s a chart that plots these numbers for easy visualization. I made it for my own interest but you and your readers may find it interesting.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ag6LFwHQqF1zdE5qaVpSY19ldU5vblRwSzFaNW95SEE&hl=en&authkey=CN2_xsgL#gid=4
You can find the numbers on the second sheet over but the source is the BLS docs that I linked to earlier.
I find it amazing how often data like this gets misrepresented in the press. My guess is that it’s a consequence of trying to be as alarmist as possible to attract readers. Or maybe they are just sloppy. Either way, it’s disappointing.