IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/c00034/102455.html

Dollars and Cents: Real Hourly Wage Growth across the Lower Half of the Wage Distribution

Author

Listed:
  • Kyle Fee

Abstract

This report analyzes real dollar differences across the lower half of the US wage distribution to shed light on the financial health of low- and moderate-income people and their households.

Suggested Citation

  • Kyle Fee, 2026. "Dollars and Cents: Real Hourly Wage Growth across the Lower Half of the Wage Distribution," Community Development Publications 102455, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:c00034:102455
    DOI: 10.26509/frbc-cd-20260218
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-cd-20260218
    File Function: Persistent link with full text
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.clevelandfed.org/-/media/project/clevelandfedtenant/clevelandfedsite/publications/cd-reports/special-reports/20260218-real-hourly-wage-growth-across-lower-half-of-wage-distribution/20260218_real-hourly-wage-growth-across-lower-half-of-wage-distribution.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.26509/frbc-cd-20260218?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yingkai Li & Boli Xu, 2024. "Learning and Communication Towards Unanimous Consent," Papers 2405.18521, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2026.
    2. Arwin & Sutrisno & Rezky Amalia Hamka & AldiAldi, 2026. "Resource communities: Past legacies and future pathways," Community Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(1), pages 171-173, January.
    3. Guhan Venkatu, 2024. "Lower-Wage Workers in Ohio Have Seen Strong Wage Gains Since 2019," Cleveland Fed District Data Brief 98754, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    4. David Autor & Arindrajit Dube & Annie McGrew, 2023. "The Unexpected Compression: Competition at Work in the Low Wage Labor Market," NBER Working Papers 31010, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Felipe Alves & Giovanni L. Violante, 2026. "Monetary Policy Under Okun’s Hypothesis," Staff Working Papers 26-3, Bank of Canada.
    2. Brad Hershbein & Katherine Lim & Douglas A. Webber & Mike Zabek, 2026. "Local Labor Market Tightness and Job Quality: Evidence from Job Changers," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2026-043, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Filippucci, Francesco & Längle, Katharina & Marcolin, Luca, 2026. "The firm side of labour shortages: Five new facts from the OECD-GFP Employer Survey," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    4. Ahmad Omar, 2024. "When Mortgage Lock-In Locks Out Homebuyers," Economic Insights, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, vol. 9(2), pages 2-9, June.
    5. Jose Maria Barrero & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2023. "Long Social Distancing," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(S1), pages 129-172.
    6. Kevin Curran, 2024. "Regional Spotlight: Wage Inequality Across the U.S," Economic Insights, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, vol. 9(2), pages 19-26, June.
    7. Krapf Matthias, 2024. "Die Ungleichheit der zu versteuernden Vermögen in der Schweiz während der Covid-19-Pandemie," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 25(3-4), pages 286-298.
    8. Judith Derndorfer & Daniel Haim & Markus Marterbauer & Patrick Mokre, 2023. "Arbeitskräfteknappheit: Chancen auf gute Arbeit für alle," Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft - WuG, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik, vol. 49(1), pages 5-19.
    9. Arindrajit Dube & Attila Lindner, 2024. "Minimum Wages in the 21st Century," RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series 2425, ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin).
    10. Burdett, Ashley & Etheridge, Ben & Tang, Li & Wang, Yikai, 2024. "Worker productivity during Covid-19 and adaptation to working from home," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    11. Mary C. Daly, 2024. "Landing Softly Is Just the Beginning," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, vol. 2024(28), pages 1-6, October.
    12. Yolanda F. Rebollo-Sanz & Núria Rodríguez-Planas, 2025. "Economic policy and psychological violence: the hidden costs of Spain’s minimum wage reform," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 719-748, December.
    13. Justin C. Wiltshire, 2023. "Walmart Supercenters and Monopsony Power: How A Large, Low-Wage Employer Impacts Local Labor Markets," Department Discussion Papers 2304, Department of Economics, University of Victoria.
    14. Garcia-Louzao, Jose & Ruggieri, Alessandro, 2026. "Labor market competition and inequality," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    15. José María Barrero & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2023. "The Evolution of Work from Home," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 23-50, Fall.
    16. Chantal Pezold & Simon Jäger & Patrick Nüss, 2023. "Labor Market Tightness and Union Activity," NBER Working Papers 31988, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Steven J. Davis, 2024. "The Big Shift in Working Arrangements: Eight Ways Unusual," NBER Working Papers 32363, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Margaret Jodlowski, 2025. "Do Agricultural Wages Exhibit Wage Compression? Evidence From Administrative and Worker‐Level Data," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(5), pages 1660-1725, December.
    19. Crump, Richard K. & Eusepi, Stefano & Giannoni, Marc & Şahin, Ayşegül, 2024. "The unemployment–inflation trade-off revisited: The Phillips curve in COVID times," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(S).
    20. Zhicheng Du & Yingkai Li & Boli Xu, 2026. "Going Public: Communication in Collective Decisions," Papers 2605.03621, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:c00034:102455. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joanne O'Dell (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbclus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.