Broadest Job Gains Since 1998 Mean Faster Wage Growth Is Coming

[okaawhatever]

The rising tide in U.S. jobs is lifting more boats than any time in 16 years.

The Labor Department’s diffusion index, which measures the breadth of industries expanding their payrolls, climbed to 69.7 percent in November, the highest level since January 1998. A level above 50 percent indicates more industries are hiring than firing.

Broader job gains will accelerate improvement in the labor market, as more industries participate in the recovery, said Neil Dutta, head of U.S. economics at Renaissance Macro Research LLC in New York. That should also spur faster gains in income growth, as employers compete for workers by bidding up wages.

“The labor market recovery is broadening out, and the diffusion index speaks to that,” Dutta said. “You have more people working, they’re working more hours and they’re earning more money.”

Continued at Link:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-05/broadest-job-gains-since-1998-mean-faster-wage-growth-is-coming.html

[liberal_at_heart]

1. Wages have been pretty stagnant a lot longer than 16 years.

And in that time cost of living has skyrocketed. There may be a few cents thrown at the minimum wage and there may even be some Directors and Vice Presidents who get a few more thousand dollars added to their paycheck, but it would take a huge, huge raise in wages to address the wage gap and the gap between income and cost of living and I just don't see that happening.