Don’t get us wrong, we’d love it if former President Donald Trump’s recent boast that the average American worker got a $500 raise this year proved true. This claim has caused analysts and economists to raise their eyebrows. So Trump’s assertion is true — sort of. This has led to a firestorm of controversy over just how stagnate wages have really gotten across the United States.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ own data on the true cost of wage increases has proven this sentiment false. Here’s why During the first half of 2025, workers experienced a net cumulative pay loss of nearly $121. When you factor in inflation, real take-home pay for full time workers increased by just over $26 over this entire time frame. That amount was calculated by taking a $1 per week raise times 26 weeks. This calculation provides an illuminating example of just how far Trump is from reality as he claims victory on the economy while American workers suffer.
The Data Behind Wage Increases
Trump’s claim that workers received a $500 raise looks like a selective reading of the data that’s available. In comparison, median weekly earnings increased from $1,185 in Q4 2024 to $1,206 in Q2 2025. This is without adjusting for inflation. Therefore, Trump’s proposed wage increase is a cynical distraction from the economic realities that most American families are living with today. These families are dealing with new, exorbitant costs each day.
Economists still argue over which data series to trust when testing for wage growth. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum, expressed his preference for the payroll series, stating, “I always trust the payroll series more.” As I’ve written before, the payroll series overemphasizes full-time workers. It leaves out the nearly one-fourth of employees who work part-time.
Median usual weekly earnings for full-time workers, quarterly This more detailed data comes from an even smaller household survey that adjusts for inflation. Some other analysts, including economist Dean Baker, have called this much smaller dataset “highly erratic.” This characterization, however, begs a crucial question about the dataset’s reliability.
Analyzing Inflation’s Impact
The gap in wage growth estimates is further exaggerated when accounting for inflation’s effect on wages. On trade, Trump exclusively points to a $546 increase in wages. This figure includes inflation, creating a misleading snapshot of actual wage growth. In fact, wage growth accelerated for President Joe Biden’s final two quarters in office. Workers saw a remarkable average raise of $884. That is an invitation to cherry-picked data to raise red flags. It rewards stories that create a rosier economic picture than workers on the ground are feeling.
With inflation still squeezing household budgets, real earnings for most full-time, full-year workers remain flat, even as nominal wages rise. Economists emphasize that understanding wage growth requires a comprehensive analysis that includes both full-time and part-time employment figures and accounts for inflationary pressures.
