evidence: Wages are on the rise, but so is inflation. Are they connected? To help understand the relationship, BLS recently expanded the availability of inflation-adjusted wage data available from the Employment Cost Index (ECI). Before we go any further, let’s look at some numbers. From December 2021 to December 2022, employer wage costs in private industry increased 5.1 percent. But adjusting for inflation, employer costs for wages fell by 1.2 percent. These inflation-adjusted data are now readily available in the quarterly ECI news release, in the BLS public database, and in new supplemental files. [...] From 2005 through 2013, the rebased CPI roughly matched the index level seen in the nominal ECI. As such, the ECI measure for real wages remained relatively flat, with an average level of 99.9. This basically means wages kept up with inflation. By the end of 2014 the CPI shifted down, mainly due to lower gasoline prices, while the nominal ECI continued to trend upward. From that point forward, the real ECI index began to trend above the base level as wages outpaced inflation. In March 2021, real wages for private industry workers were 7.3 percent higher than in March 2005.