Your pay raise? No match for inflation.
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 25 January 2022
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How inflation is wiping out pay raises. Plus, how Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s mask mandate ban has plunged Virginia’s public schools into chaos.
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After years of barely budging, wage growth is finally at its highest level in decades. Workers have more negotiating power than many ever imagined, and average hourly wages rose 4.7 percent last year. But, as economics correspondent Abha Bhattarai explains, the same strong recovery that is emboldening workers is also driving up inflation, leaving most Americans with less spending power than they had a year ago.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) banned mask mandates in public schools recently. Now, school districts are suing in the name of science. National education writer Laura Meckler says this is not an isolated incident. Many states are dealing with a fight to either support mask mandates or parents’ rights.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Nicole Troisi is a graphic designer who lives in Ohio and she recently got some good news |
| 0:08.1 | at work. |
| 0:09.2 | She got a raise. |
| 0:13.9 | Anytime you get a raise, you're like, you know, you're excited about that and happy and |
| 0:19.4 | you, I mean, that's why everyone works and goes to work and does their best every day and |
| 0:24.6 | hopes to advance and make more money. |
| 0:28.0 | And I personally love what I do for a living. |
| 0:33.6 | During the pandemic, Nicole's boss got a PPP loan. |
| 0:37.2 | So everyone in the company got a $1 an hour raise. |
| 0:41.0 | And Nicole was siked because that money was going to make a big difference. |
| 0:45.8 | I was making more an hour and that was helping and it was going in the bank and we had a |
| 0:50.6 | little extra money and now that is totally gone. |
| 0:56.0 | Really gone because of inflation. |
| 0:59.1 | You know, we're seeing a situation where workers in many ways have more power than they |
| 1:03.9 | have had in decades. |
| 1:05.8 | They're feeling emboldened to go in and ask for raises and in many cases, they're getting |
| 1:09.8 | raises and bonuses. |
| 1:11.2 | And that's Abba Bhattarai, the economics correspondent for the post. |
| 1:15.7 | But we're also in a situation where prices are rising at the fastest rate in decades and |
| 1:20.4 | that 7% increase in inflation has wiped out almost all of those gains for most Americans. |
| 1:26.0 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is post reports, I'm routine powers. |
| 1:34.1 | It's Tuesday, January 25th. |
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