I fail to see how it's "misleading". U3 doesn't include people who don't want a job. That seems... fine? If you don't want a job, and don't have a job, why should you be factored into the health of the labor market? Isn't it more misleading to lump people who want a job but can't find a job, with people who don't want a job and aren't working?
>Source: Bankrate's Wage To Inflation Index using the Department of Labor's employment cost index (ECI) and consumer price index (CPI)
Using BLS's weekly wage data adjusted by CPI gets the opposite conclusion, so my guess is that there's something funky going on with the employment cost index. For one, it includes benefits, so if health insurance costs go down, then "average income" (as computed by bankrate's index) will go down, even if your take-home is the same. At best, the only thing you can conclude from that is "employers' spending on employees is rising slower than inflation", which is slightly different than "employees' incomes are rising slower than inflation".
I fail to see how it's "misleading". U3 doesn't include people who don't want a job. That seems... fine? If you don't want a job, and don't have a job, why should you be factored into the health of the labor market? Isn't it more misleading to lump people who want a job but can't find a job, with people who don't want a job and aren't working?
>but has it caught up? https://www.bankrate.com/banking/federal-reserve/wage-to-inf...
The linked article says:
>Source: Bankrate's Wage To Inflation Index using the Department of Labor's employment cost index (ECI) and consumer price index (CPI)
Using BLS's weekly wage data adjusted by CPI gets the opposite conclusion, so my guess is that there's something funky going on with the employment cost index. For one, it includes benefits, so if health insurance costs go down, then "average income" (as computed by bankrate's index) will go down, even if your take-home is the same. At best, the only thing you can conclude from that is "employers' spending on employees is rising slower than inflation", which is slightly different than "employees' incomes are rising slower than inflation".
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q