rising real wages in a recession

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Doug wrote: >real wage growth has actually picked up for U.S. workers -
it's approaching 2% year-on-year in private services. Service prices are
rising more slowly than wages, putting a squeeze on profits. <

oh, yeah, I forgot: is it possible that the economy is sliding upward along
a downward-sloping labor demand (= marginal product of labor) curve (with
the real wage on the vertical axis & employment on the horizontal), so that
as wages rise (due to the greed or shortsightedness of workers) we see
employment falling?

as my students say: "yeah, right."

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine