So Hourly Wages Increased In June?

Hardly. Remember all this hoo-ha at the beginning of the month? AP (07.07.06):

"Workers' average hourly earnings, meanwhile, jumped to $16.70 in June, a sharp 0.5 percent increase from May." Payrolls Climb in June; Wages Increase - Forbes.com

Well the Labor Department has finally posted (check the "Constant (1982) dollars" box, hit the "Retrieve data" button) June's average hourly wage for of production or nonsupervisory workers. It's $8.17 an hour. Up $.02 from May, hip, hip, hooray. Guess how much it was at the start of 2006? If you said $8.17, you'd be correct. Don't mean to rub it in, but five years ago, in October of 2001, the average hourly wage in 1982 dollars was $8.16.