Pay in the US is falling behind prices. Real average hourly earnings for all employees fell 0.5 percent from August to September 2026, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on October 14. Hourly pay rose 0.1 percent, but consumer prices rose 0.6 percent.
Key takeaways
- Real hourly earnings: down 0.5 percent on the month, down 0.7 percent on the year.
- Real weekly earnings: down 0.1 percent on the year, helped by a slightly longer workweek.
- Production and nonsupervisory workers: real hourly pay down 0.6 percent on the month and on the year.
- The October report is due on November 10, 2026.
What are real earnings?
Real earnings are wages adjusted for inflation. If your raise is smaller than the rise in prices, your real pay has gone down even though your paycheck went up.
Who is feeling it most?
Production and nonsupervisory workers, a group that covers most hourly staff, saw real weekly earnings fall 0.3 percent over the year. Their prices measure, the CPI-W, rose 0.7 percent in September alone.
What can you do about it?
Know your market rate before your next review. Our guides to answering salary questions and reading posted salary ranges show you how to ask for a raise that keeps up.
What is the background?
For much of 2024 and 2025, pay grew faster than prices and workers slowly regained the ground lost during the inflation spike of 2022. That trend has turned. With consumer prices rising 0.6 percent in a single month, and average hourly pay growing only 3.0 percent over the year, real pay is now going backwards. One month can be noisy, but the 12-month figure shows the squeeze is not just a blip.
Who is affected?
Everyone whose pay did not rise this year, but especially hourly and lower-paid workers, who spend a larger share of their income on essentials such as food, rent and fuel. Retirees and people on fixed incomes are not covered by this report, but they face the same price rises. People who changed jobs recently may have done better, because job switchers usually get bigger raises.
What should workers do now?
- Work out your real raise: subtract the annual inflation rate from your pay rise. If it is negative, you have a case for a review.
- Gather evidence before asking: your results, your extra duties and market pay for your role.
- Look at the whole package. Remote days, training budgets or health cover can be worth real money.
- If your employer will not move, compare offers elsewhere. See our guide to what counts as a middle-class salary.
- Watch the October report on November 10, 2026.
What happens next?
BLS will publish October real earnings on November 10, 2026, the same day as the October consumer price index. That will show whether September's price jump was a one-off.
Source: BLS Real Earnings, September 2026.
Keep this insight useful.
Share it with your network, save it for later, or create a signed affiliate link.
Creating or clicking a link does not create earnings. Only fraud-reviewed outcomes can allocate an existing eligible paid-ad-funded monthly pool.
