Article: U.S. Labor Department Reports that Inflation Outpaced Wage Increases in 2003.

By Rob Varnon, Connecticut Post, Bridgeport Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Jan. 16--Inflation outpaced the wage increases for working class families in 2003, according to numbers released Thursday by the U.S. Labor Department.

The Labor Department released two reports that said nonsupervisory workers' real earnings increased by 1.7 percent in 2003 while the consumer price index ended the year 1.9 percent higher than it did in December 2002.

But Donald Klepper-Smith, chief economist with New Haven-based Scillia Dowling and Natarelli Advisors, said a better gauge is the annual inflation rate, which increased 2.3 percent in 2003.

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