U.S. wage trends: 40 years of stagnation in manufacturing

Inflation-adjusted manufacturing wage, June 2008 (preliminary): $8.04

No net increase in inflation-adjusted manufacturing wage since: November 1968

Peak inflation-adjusted manufacturing wage: $8.97 (February 1978)

Decline in inflation-adjusted manufacturing wage since peak: 10.37%

Source: Alan Tonelson, AmericanEconomicAlert.org. Calculated from “Multi-screen Data Search, Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey,” Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Labor, http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/dsrv?ce