Inflation is outpacing wage growth again, squeezing Americans’ paychecks

Americans face a renewed squeeze on their paychecks as inflation once again rises faster than wage growth, putting further pressure on consumer wallets.

"A substantial number of Americans are worse off, their incomes are not keeping up with the price increases right now," Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, told CNBC.

Consumer prices rose 3.4% in August from a year earlier, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics .

Average hourly earnings, meanwhile, increased just 3.1% over the same period, according to a separate BLS report released Friday. Real average hourly earnings, adjusted for inflation, fell 0.1% from July and were down 0.3% from a year earlier in August.

The gap between inflation and wage growth is a stark reminder that workers are losing purchasing power.

"The basics are that inflation is wiping out wage gains," said Long, adding that April marked a clear turning point after a lengthy stretch in which wage growth had generally exceeded inflation.

From May 2023 until about April of this year, workers had been slowly regaining ground.

In fact, Long first started charting the inflation-wage growth relationship a year ago to make the opposite point — that things were improving and even as Americans remained frustrated at the time by the higher overall price level, wages were gradually catching up.