economic statistics. According to them, productivity grew 100% between 1973 and 2012 while employee compensation, which accounts for worker benefits as well as wages, grew 77%. The Economic Policy Institute and the Heritage Foundation used different inflation adjusting methods in their studies. Besides rising benefit costs, proposed causes of wage stagnation include the decline of labor unions, loss of job mobility (including through non-competes), and declining employment by the manufacturing sector. Between June 2016 and June 2017, wages in the United States grew by 2.5%. Factor in inflation, and that level is close to 1% growth for the period. European Union The countries of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom have experienced strong real wage growth following European integration in the early 1980s.[6] However, according to OECD between 2007 and 2015 the United Kingdom saw a real wage decline of 10.4%, equal only to Greece. See also Real versus nominal value (economics) References Wages and salaries Inflation