Cobb Reporter

Wages in Cobb County have outpaced the national average, rising by 13.3% compared to 13% nationally, but when adjusted for inflation, those gains are weakened. 

Georgia ranked 42nd of 50 states by percent change and 23rd by level, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). 

Georgia's unemployment rate has declined for 14 straight months, and currently sits at 3.7% which is well below the national average. This is also the first time that unemployment has dropped to pre-pandemic levels, according to the Georgia Department of Labor.

In an article for the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), Harvard economist Jason Furman, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors and economic advisor to President Barack Obama, and Wilson Powell III, former PIIE research analyst, said said paychecks aren't going as far as they used to. In June 2021, real compensation fell 0.7% below the levels of December 2019, and 2% lower than its pre-pandemic trend.

Nominal compensation for all U.S. citizens has risen by a 2.8% annual rate, according to the BLS. At the same time, because of inflated prices, real compensation is down by 2% since before the COVID-19 crisis began. Prices rose faster than wages, leading to inflation-adjusted compensation falling for the past three months below its December 2019 level, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics. 

The BLS said its Consumer Price Index (CPI) reported notable upticks over the past 12 months on items particularly important to average American households: food (3.4%), energy (23.8%), and used vehicles (41.7%). 

Authors of the initial $1 trillion infrastructure bill, Including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Senate Democrats, said the bill would be "fully paid for," according to The Wall Street Journal. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said that the $1 trillion installment of the infrastructure plan would add $256 billion to the federal deficit over 10 years, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

Members of the bipartisan group that negotiated the infrastructure bill said they expected the analysis from the Congressional Budget Office to differ from their own and said some of the measures to cover the cost of the bill wouldn’t count the same way toward CBO’s official estimate.

Mark Vitner, a senior economist for Well’s Fargo’s Corporate and Investment Bank, said current inflation trends won’t come close to historical periods of inflation, according to the Business Journal.