{"id":305742,"date":"2026-05-21T13:55:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T17:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/?post_type=short-read&p=305742"},"modified":"2026-05-28T12:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T16:47:08","slug":"have-americans-wages-kept-up-with-inflation-that-depends","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2026\/05\/21\/have-americans-wages-kept-up-with-inflation-that-depends\/","title":{"rendered":"Have Americans\u2019 wages kept up with inflation? That depends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A New York City grocery store on Jan. 16, 1980, and a Washington, D.C., grocery store on April 12, 2026. (Barbara Alper\/Getty Images; Al Drago\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Inflation in the United States reached its highest level in three years in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)<\/a>. And many Americans are feeling the pinch: In a Pew Research Center survey<\/a> also conducted in April, 66% of U.S. adults said inflation is a very big problem facing the nation, up from 63% last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With many Americans worried about prices, it\u2019s worth looking at whether workers\u2019 wages have been rising quickly enough to keep up. Like a lot of things in economics, however, there\u2019s\u00a0not\u00a0one definitive answer.\u00a0Determining whether wages have kept up with inflation depends on many factors:<\/strong> how you define wages, which set of workers you examine, how you measure inflation and which time period you choose to analyze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this analysis, we\u2019ll show how changing just one of those factors \u2013 how you measure inflation \u2013 can significantly alter the overall picture. Without adjusting for inflation, median weekly wages more than doubled between the end of 1999 and the end of 2025, from $482 to $1,040. Factor in inflation, though, and real buying power over that span rose by anywhere from 11% to 22%, depending on which price index you use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About this research<\/summary>\n

This Pew Research Center analysis examines how real wages in the United States have changed in recent decades, based on different measures of inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why did we do this?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Pew Research Center conducts research to help the public, journalists and decision-makers understand important topics. This project adds to the Center\u2019s research on the economy and work<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did we do this?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

To examine Americans\u2019 wages, we obtained Current Population Survey data on weekly earnings of employed civilian wage and salary workers from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series<\/a> (IPUMS), a project of the University of Minnesota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We used weekly earnings for ease of comprehension and because average hours worked per week have been fairly stable in recent years, aside from during the Great Recession and the years during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. We used median earnings rather than average earnings because averages are more easily skewed by the very high salaries some people earn. (\u201cMedian\u201d here means half of all workers earned more and half earned less.) The wage data excludes self-employment earnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After calculating median weekly earnings for each month, we adjusted them for inflation using three indexes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, the Chained CPI for All Urban Consumers and the CPI Retroactive Series. We also used the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, another widely cited inflation metric, produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our analysis period starts in December 1999, the earliest month with data from all four inflation indexes we used. It ends in December 2025, the most recent available month for the retroactive series mentioned above.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n

Measuring inflation with the main Consumer Price Index<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The most frequently reported inflation measure is the Consumer Price Index<\/a> \u2013 officially, the \u201cConsumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers,\u201d or CPI-U.<\/p>\n\n\n

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How much would the median weekly wage in 1999 be worth today?<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Using four measures of inflation<\/em><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Note: Figures represent median weekly earnings of employed wage and salary workers.<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Source: Pew Research Center analysis of IPUMS-CPS earnings data, Bureau of Labor Statistics\u2019 Consumer Price Index (CPI) variants and Bureau of Economic Analysis\u2019 Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index.<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
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