
These workers are the only ones really seeing higher wages
CNN
Lots of workers are getting raises, but for many, the pay hikes won't buy them more at the grocery store or car dealership. In fact, wages are behind where they were when the pandemic began, if you take rising prices into account.
Inflation-adjusted wages, which have been falling steadily since mid-2020, are 1.2% below where they were in December 2019, according to an analysis of Employment Cost Index quarterly data by Jason Furman, an economics professor at Harvard University. The index measures wages and salaries, along with health, retirement and other benefits.
Over the last year, inflation-adjusted wages dropped 2.4%.

A typical 401(k) plan only offers stock and bond funds that invest in publicly traded companies. But private companies — traditionally the domain of institutional and high-net-worth investors — have become a significant part of the overall investing market. Do they belong as an option in workplace retirement plans, given that they are often more expensive and less transparent than publicly traded securities?

President Donald Trump’s attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell are so commonplace at this point that they barely register in financial markets these days. The rapidly intensifying multi-pronged efforts by Trump’s advisers to amplify and expand on Trump’s attacks are a good reason to rethink that indifference.