Wages fall

Workers made less per week in June than anytime over the past 18 months, when adjusted for inflation.

The downward spiral in wages is yet another sign of how troubled the jobs market is, economists said. And it will also slow the pace of the recovery since Americans won’t start buying more until they are earning more.

“It’s a symptom of how weak hiring is,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning research group. “Employers know they don’t have to pay substantial wage increases to keep workers.”

Average weekly earnings last month fell to $788.56. It’s impossible to do exact inflation-adjusted comparisons with previous months until June’s inflation rate is released, but June’s earnings will be lower than they were in January 2010, Shierholz said.