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Real wage growth over the past 12 years was concentrated at the bottom 20 pct of the distribution.

Real wage growth over the past 6 months was also somewhat concentrated at the bottom, but much less so. So there was negative real wage growth in the top half. Positive real wage growth in the bottom half.

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Over the past 3 months, real wage growth was also larger at the bottom, but increasing evidence that the middle was keeping up with COL.

Cc:

this is a slight update on what I said today (based on new data), but broadly the point remains that substantial real wage growth is concentrated in the bottom half of the wage distribution in the US.

Obv there are concerns about composition effects (which are less concerning for short run changes). I'll be posting composition-adjusted distributional changes in wage by percentile in coming days/weeks.

Adjusting for composition of workers and jobs (demographic + industry/occupation*) suggests a bit more positive real wage growth, expanding the set receiving a real wage increase in past 6, 12 months. Here is 12 month change. Now + real wage change up to ~30th percentile.

Here is the 6 month change figure with composition adjustment. Now + real wage change up to 55th percentile.

Here is the 3 month change figure with composition adjustment. In this case, composition adjustment actually makes the real wage growth a bit negative for upper middle, but now story more similar to the 6 month change.

Here I adjusted for industry and occupations along with demographics, so this is a bit more about what's happening to "jobs." However, just doing demographic adjustment (capturing what's happening to "people") produces fairly similar findings.