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by hedora
12 days ago
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That data is just unemployment. It doesn’t address real wages. Out here in California, I see headlines like “inflation hits 3.8%”, which seems right until I realize they mean YoY and not monthly, seasonally adjusted. I know the Trump administration fired a bunch of economists for putting out honest numbers in 2025, so I trust the anecdotes and consumer sentiment stories over official numbers anyway. I’d love to see third party CPI and inflation numbers, preferably by zipcode or at least state. |
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Seasonally adjusted, month over month annualized, inflation was 7.2% in April [1]. (3.8% YoY.) Until December, the California economy was doing well, with average weekly wages up 4.6% YoY [2].
But in 2026, “real average hourly earnings for all employees [nationwide] decreased 0.5 percent from March to April, seasonally adjusted” [3]. And as of March, we know California’s electricity prices have risen faster than national average, 15 to 20% versus 7.2% nationally [4], causing it to be one of the few states where retail consumption decreased.
Put together, we’d expect real earnings in California to have fallen faster than the national average. What you’re seeing is real and clearly present in the data and representative of a bad trend being compounded by regional headwinds.
[1] https://www.bls.gov/cpi/latest-numbers.htm
[2] https://www.bls.gov/charts/county-employment-and-wages/perce...
[3] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.nr0.htm
[4] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/update/end-use.php