Whoosh, there go our wage gains

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**Kai Ryssdal** (0:32)
Potato chips, paper checks and the labor market. Yes, indeed, we got it all. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace.
In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdal. Monday, today, this one is the 10th of August. Good as it always is to have you along, everybody. If you flip through the Rolodex of this economy right now, you will see a lot of things that are headline worthy. AI spending and related what the markets are doing about that. Oil and the president's war, trade and tariffs, those are kind of perennials at this point. Arguably though, and with all respect to the other items I just mentioned, the two things most worthy of attention are inflation and the labor market, which gets us to this week. We will get the July consumer price index on Wednesday, wholesale prices on Thursday, that of course will be the producer price index. And then how those two things feed into consumer behavior with the July report on retail spending come Friday. That all, as you know, follows the July jobs report out last Friday, in which we learned wage growth fell sharply with average hourly earnings increasing at the slowest pace in five years, still growing but more slowly.
Inflation, I do not need to remind you, isn't really slowing much at all. So high inflation, slowing wage growth, here's Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman.

**Mitchell Hartman** (2:08)
One year ago, prices were rising by 2.7% year over year. Workers' average hourly pay was growing by 4%.
Fast forward to now, prices are now rising 3.5% a year, but wage growth has slowed to just 3.2%. Real earnings, that's pay after accounting for inflation, actually turned negative back in April.

**Johnny Sawyer** (2:32)
Consumers aren't going around doing that calculation.

**Mitchell Hartman** (2:35)
Johnny Sawyer is at public opinion firm, Ipsos.

**Johnny Sawyer** (2:39)
But what they do know is that their cost of living is up and they feel like the economy is not doing well.

**Mitchell Hartman** (2:44)
And employers aren't under much pressure to increase wages because workers are staying put even in the face of anemic raises, says Amy Glazer at staffing firm, Adekko.

**Amy Glazer** (2:55)
Employees are really looking for security. We've seen wages slow.
You're not seeing these huge sign-on bonuses.

**Mitchell Hartman** (3:02)
So as purchasing power is eroded, what are consumers doing?

**Ted Rossman** (3:06)
A lot of people have been forced to dip into savings and take on debt.

**Mitchell Hartman** (3:10)
Ted Rossman is at non-profit credit counseling firm, Money Management International. He says it's not just low-income consumers, it's also middle-income earners finding that rising prices have eaten up their entire paycheck before the end of the month.

**Ted Rossman** (3:25)
This is often very practical debt. It's not usually a vacation or a shopping spree. I mean, usually this is medical debt, car repairs, it's groceries, it's everyday essentials.

**Mitchell Hartman** (3:37)
Consumers are trading down, spending more frugally, says Joanne Shue at the University of Michigan Consumer Surveys, but not everybody.

**Joanne Shue** (3:46)
At the very top of the income and wealth spectrum, they're probably not adjusting, they're spending all that much. Consumers who have large stock portfolios may be feeling wealthier than they have felt in a long time.

**Mitchell Hartman** (3:58)
And Shue says they generate the lion's share of consumer spending, meaning their outlays may mask declining purchasing power for the rest of consumers in the economy. I'm Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.

**Kai Ryssdal** (4:10)
Wall Street today, oil was up a little bit, stocks were down a little bit, Strait of Hormuz is still closed. All y'all know the drill. We will have the details when we do the numbers.
All right. Here's a story about the power of a brand, about knowing your customer, and hoping they will follow you. It's a story about technology, and in a way, throwing spaghetti at the wall, and seeing what sticks. Bed Bath & Beyond, the parent company of, yes, Bed Bath & Beyond, but also Overstock and Bye Bye Baby. They're changing their name, and a whole bunch more. Come Monday next, BB&B will henceforth be known as Neighborhood Intelligence. The plan is to move into services a bit more, flooring and insurance, maybe mortgages. It's buying a real estate platform called Fathom, and it's going to move from the New York Stock Exchange to the NASDAQ, ticker changes from BBBY to NXH. Marketplace's Kristin Schwab explains it all.