because of the rich man's stupidity that says wages drive inflation, they learned that in Econ 101 with that widget factory.

It's not true, of course, higher wages mean inflation has already occurred. It's not a case of too much moey chasing too few goods these days, it's more a case of near monopolies seeing an opportunity for naked greed, layered on the shocks of a pandemic, two wars ending, and an idiot in office who printed trillions of dollars, some of which weren't stolen and poured into the stock market. All of those exert infationary pressure. Those widget factory workers getting a few cents more an hour are just trying to keep up. The factory owner has been hiking the widget price all along to match the inflationary rate and has been making a killing. The last thing he wants to do is pass it along to workers who are now living on beans and rice. They're living, aren't they?

Considered the most reliable gauge of wages and salaries:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143067288#post4

So real wages and salaries have finally turned up, slightly, in the last 2 quarters.

But the last reading is still 3.7% below the peak, and 3.4% below the Q1.2021 value.

Inflation began its sustained rise above 2% beginning about 2021 Q1, a little bit past midpoint on the graph. And that's when inflation-adjusted wages began their decline.

Unfortunately, this report is updated only quarterly. Next one due in late July

Graphs at   https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf
of both initial claims and continuing claims aka insured employment.

Initial claims: 262k, unchanged from previous week.
Previous week revised up 1k. So on net, initial claims are 1k higher than in last week's report (261k)


Continuing claims (aka insured unemployment): 1775k, up 20k from previous week
Previous week revised down 2k. So on net, continuing claims are 18k higher than in last week's report (1757k)


In last week's report, which showed a big jump in initial claims, they said it might be distorted by the 3-day Memorial Day weekend. Unfortunately, this week seems to confirm that it was real. No July rate hike!

is good to know.

For some reason, I am thinking they may consider doing something in September and then maybe December (if needed).

Teachers qualify for unemployment, so that may be some of the gain.

but here in Philly, the teachers had 2 options for pay - either receiving a paycheck each pay period for the 10 months that school was in session and forgo a check the 2 summer months (where each check was "larger" ) or opt for pay year round (for a "smaller" check each pay period but no disruption in payment).

In the former case, you had some who would pick up a 2nd job over the summer (counselor, tutor, summer school teaching, etc), so they were getting some kind of paycheck those 2 months and in the latter, there was no change in paycheck.

So there was no "unemployment" there to file for.

month from year to year and I don't know if they try to adjust for that. Or something like Christmas - different if it falls on a Wednesday vs. a Friday or Monday for example, and I don't know if they try to adjust for that.

they normally don't become "unemployed" each summer when school lets out (prompting the filing for unemployment), so they wouldn't be contributing to any of it anyway. It's possible that temps working in school districts might qualify (I used to sub for the schools here right after I graduated from college and was job hunting, so I saw how they worked the pay thing and in my case, they had a whole per diem arrangement).

You're right - a lot of teachers pick up summer gigs, but some can't do the typical summer gigs because of age or disability (for example, being a Walmart greeter when you have bad feet). Some jobs don't want temporary workers if they can hire longer term.

Both subs and teachers can qualify for unemployment here if you have worked 500 hours over the past 4 quarters.