Inflation spurs record decline in workers’ wages and benefits
(CNN) -- Skyrocketing inflation is robbing Americans of their raises.
Total compensation costs for civilian workers declined 3.7% over the past 12 months ending in March, after accounting for inflation, according to the Employment Cost Index report published Friday.
It's the largest decline since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began inflation-adjusted records in 2001. What's more, it comes at a time when compensation costs -- which includes the wages employers pay plus health, retirement and other benefits -- are rising swiftly, before accounting for inflation, as employers try to fill positions and hold on to their staff.
The data, which tracks changes in employers' labor costs, quantifies the pain that people are feeling as prices rise faster than they have in the past 40 years. The increasing cost of food, gasoline and housing are eating away at workers' paychecks.
The inflation-adjusted cost of wages and salaries fell 3.6%, while benefit costs dropped 4.2%, both the largest decreases since the series started 21 years ago.
"For workers, this is bad news," Jason Furman, an economics professor at Harvard University and former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration, said of the inflation-adjusted data. "Wages are falling very rapidly over the last year and are way below where they were two years ago."
