An Ominous Omission Becomes An Ominous Presence

What's the one harrowing economic harbinger of doom that's thus far been missing from the Obama depression?  See if you can guess from these real wage figures from the Indolence Department:

Real average hourly earnings for all employees fell 0.2% from June to July, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This decrease stems from a 0.2% increase in average hourly earnings combined with a 0.3% increase in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U).

Real average weekly earnings rose 0.2% over the month, as a result of a 0.3% increase in the average work week combined with the decrease in real average hourly earnings. Since reaching a recent low in October 2009, real average weekly earnings have risen 2.0%. …

Real average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees fell 0.2% from June to July, seasonally adjusted. This result stemmed from a 0.4% increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) while average hourly earnings rose 0.1%.

That's an annual inflation rate of 3.6%.  Not anything close to Carteresque (in the teens) - yet.  But a, shall we say, "pregnant" indicator of the current Obamanomic stagnation further transmogrifying into stagflation.

Speaking of stagnation, June manufacturing and trade sales were sharply adjusted - downward.

For the record, the "misery index" on Election Day 2008 was 9.8%.  The misery index today?  13.1%.

Are you better off today than you were eighteen months ago?