[thunky]

Yeah, just because wages are a component of inflation doesn't mean we can't talk about them in real terms. Same for housing, also a component of inflation: if house prices rise/inflate 2% while inflation is 10%, it's fair to say that housing declined 8% in real terms.

[lamontcg]

You can talk about wages in real terms in order to see what their impact is on the actual buying power of the average worker.

But if you're trying specifically to discuss and talk about the wage component of inflation it is nonsense to talk about that in real terms. Adjusting to eliminate the effect of inflation on wages is not the way to measure wage inflation. It should be intuitively obvious that is nonsense.

[thunky]

I guess I'm not thinking like an economist then. It's still not clear to me why "wage inflation is the one that has the Fed worried".

We've seen absurd asset inflation (equities, housing, crypto!) due to easy money, and the Fed just sat on their hands. So now, wages are going up and workers are finally getting a raise? No, because their wage increases aren't keeping up with their higher expenses. But wages are going up, in nominal terms, so now the Fed jumps up and rings the alarm?