Recent economic changes have eroded the wage gains achieved during Trump's presidency. Inflation, primarily driven by rising energy costs, has negated a year's worth of wage increases within four months. Real hourly earnings for private-sector workers showed no growth since January 2025, with purchase power remaining stagnant. This decline signals a reversal in economic progress previously showcased by the administration. Inflation was reported at 4.2%, the highest since April 2023, worsening household financial situations. The administration is optimistic that energy prices will reduce once geopolitical tensions decrease, specifically relating to conflict in Iran, which has been impacting costs.

2 hours ago - Economy

Key Trump economic win disappears: Wage gains wiped out

Courtenay Brown,
Neil Irwin
email (opens in new window)
sms (opens in new window)
facebook (opens in new window)

twitter (opens in new window)

linkedin (opens in new window)

bluesky (opens in new window)

Add Axios on Google

Add Axios as your preferred source to

see more of our stories on Google.

Add Axios on Google

Real wage growth since Trump took office

https://graphics.axios.com/hermesv2/2026-06-10-1422-real-wage-growth/index.html

A year's worth of inflation-adjusted wage gains vanished in just four months, leaving workers little better off than when President Trump returned to office.

Why it matters: The reversal shows how the recent energy-driven inflation surge is eating into household purchasing power. Real pay for rank-and-file workers is up just 0.1% since Trump took office in January 2025.

Rising real wages helped underpin the White House's case that the economy was improving. That advantage has now largely disappeared.

By the numbers: After rising for much of 2025, real wage growth has effectively stalled across the labor market. Inflation-adjusted hourly earnings for all private-sector workers are unchanged from last January.

Earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers — a widely used proxy for private-sector working-class employees —are up just 0.1% over that timeframe.

Zoom in: Average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers — a widely used proxy for private-sector working-class employees — have risen a cumulative 4.9% since January 2025.

But inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, is up just as much over the same period.

Flashback: Exactly a year ago, White House officials highlighted this gauge as evidence that working-class Americans were seeing their paychecks stretch further.

Now, by this measure, real pay has given back nearly all of those gains.

What to watch: Inflation was 4.2% for the 12 months through May, the fastest pace since April 2023.

The surge was driven in large part by higher energy prices linked to the Iran war.
The silver lining: Inflation looks so far contained to energy-related sectors, rather than bleeding to other household purchases as economists feared.

What they're saying:"The numbers were great," Trump said in the Oval Office, responding to a question about whether he was concerned about the inflation data released earlier on Wednesday.

"I love the inflation," Trump said, later adding that oil prices were "going to come down like a rock" once the war ends.

The other side: "President Trump has always been clear about the fact that oil and gas prices — and thus overall inflation — will rapidly drop as soon as the Iran situation is resolved," White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement.

He added that before the start of the Iran war, American workers had recovered a significant portion "of the real wage losses they experienced under Joe Biden, thanks to this Administration's commonsense agenda of deregulation, tax cuts and energy abundance."
email (opens in new window)
sms (opens in new window)
facebook (opens in new window)

twitter (opens in new window)

linkedin (opens in new window)

bluesky (opens in new window)

Add Axios on Google

What to read next

Read Original at Axios →