United States Wages And Salaries

The wages and benefits of American workers so far this year have risen at their slowest pace in almost two decades, clouding what had been some of the brightest news about the current boom--its recent success at improving the lots of a broad swath of working people. The government said its employment cost index, Washington's most reliable measure of what employers are paying in wages, salaries and benefits, rose a mere 0.

Brisk economic growth in 1998 pushed up Americans' wages and benefits by 3.4%, the fastest growth in five years and a slight improvement over 1997. The gain reported Thursday by the Labor Department in its employment cost index marked the third consecutive year of improvement.

American workers' wages and benefits rose 3.5% in the year ended last month, the largest gain since 1993, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Until the beginning of last year, compensation had remained fairly flat during an otherwise broad expansion of the economy.

Americans enjoyed solid pay gains this spring that allowed them to buy new homes at a record rate in June, the government said Thursday in reports that reflected an underlying strength in the U.

The pay and benefits of U.S. workers rose modestly in the third quarter of the year, the government said Thursday in a report likely to comfort the inflation-wary Federal Reserve.

The U.S. economy added 310,000 more workers last month, the government said Friday, a greater-than-expected surge that pushed wages up at their fastest pace of the year and lifted the odds that an inflation-wary Federal Reserve will raise interest rates later this month.