According to the BLS’s latest figures, real hourly compensation increased 2.2% Q/Q (annualized rate) in Q3. Wages and earnings are being closely watched, of course, for signs of acceleration due to the so far ethereal full employment level. That idea is taken from the unemployment rate even though, as in November, it has been as much determined by the lack of enthusiasm for the jobs market as what is supposed to be the “best jobs market in decades.”

This is a very delicate balance where the longer it lingers the more likely economists will be forced to admit the impossible about the unemployment rate. From there, the whole narrative of the “recovery” unravels, because if there are no wage gains then there must remain enormous “slack” which can only mean that the denominator of the unemployment rate was more important than the numerator and that the Great “Recession” was therefore no recession at all.

For over two and a half years now, economists have been claiming that slack was disappearing and that wages were poised to takeoff and prove it. For Janet Yellen, that would have been the signal to begin tightening before the economy might overheat as wage gains fueled price gains. Without those wage gains, economists are still stuck on Step 1, which is why the Fed is in no hurry whatsoever to actually “tighten” (or what they believe is tightening policy).

At 2.2%, real hourly compensation is again disappointing, stuck in the same rut as has been the case since 2009. For a few quarters especially to start 2015, it had appeared as if hourly wages were, in this series anyway, looking as if they might break out higher at long last. To end 2014, real pay rose 3% in Q3 that year, 3.9% in Q4, and then 4.8% to start in Q1 2015. To many, that was the signal they had been waiting for. Even the Employment Cost Index, a separate BLS data series, had accelerated to 2.6% in Q1 2015, the highest since 2008.