Average Worker’s Compensation Falls

American workers’ inflation-adjusted compensation fell 2.7 percent in the year ended in March, the largest drop since the government began tracking wages and benefits in 1987.

The Labor Department said Thursday real hourly compensation in private industry fell to $17.10 an hour, down from $17.57 a year earlier. That included a 24-cent decline in wages and salaries, to $12.25 an hour.

Labor Secretary Robert Reich described the report as “very, very dramatic” and “very disturbing.”

“Despite a strong year of economic growth …, the wages of working Americans have suffered the largest decline since the series began eight years ago,” he said.

Reich said the decline represented a danger to the economy “because consumers who don’t have enough money to spend may not be able to keep the recovery going.”