This must be a tough time for all the doom-and-gloom analysts who insist the nation's economy, despite positive overall signs, is doing poorly.
For awhile now, the worry has been that, despite strong growth overall growth in prices and corporate profits, wages were lagging. The average American was actually losing monetary clout as inflation took hold in the energy sector and as real estate prices dropped. But a New York Times story late last week made it clear that wages now are rising, and at a level not seen since the boom years of the 1990s.
From October of 2005 to last October, the average hourly wage for everyone below a management level rose by 2.8 percent. Meanwhile, energy prices, specifically the retail price of gasoline, has dropped recently, easing the strain on household budgets.
Some analysts say this was to be expected. Unemployment is low, about 4.4 percent, and employers have little choice but to pay more in order to attract and retain workers. The only question remaining is whether this gain in wages will continue, spurring the kind of strong and sustained growth that characterized the end of the last decade.
No one knows, of course. But a couple of things are worth noting.
The first is that the United States still has tremendous economic clout and resiliency. It has weathered terrorist attacks and an expensive and increasingly unpopular war without seeing much change in lifestyle or purchasing power. A lot of other nations have been less fortunate, in part because they have governments that are considerably more meddlesome in economic affairs.
And that leads to the second point. As Democrats take over Congress next month, they would be wise to refrain from any actions that might harm the economy. The conventional wisdom that government actions can only harm, not help, economic growth is worth heeding.
Raising the minimum wage may be popular, but it will have no positive effect on overall wages or employment. The same can be said about protectionist measures that serve only to save a few jobs while also raising prices and costing jobs elsewhere.
Viewed through a microscope, the economy ebbs and flows and creates a host of troubling signs mixed with good. But viewed over the past several years, the U.S. economy has produced an impressive record, indeed, amid a lot of international upheaval.