A comprehensive study released today by CUPE shows there's no evidence public sector workers are paid consistently more than those in similar jobs in the private sector.

Instead, overall average pay in the public sector is remarkably similar when compared against similar jobs in the private sector: only 0.5 per cent higher.

The Labour Force Survey for August showed that average hourly wages were up by just 1.4 per cent from a year earlier, the same low level of increase as was registered in July. Consumer price inflation was 2.7 per cent in July, a bit down from 3.1 per cent in June and 3.7 per cent in May, but it seems that we have entered a period of falling real wages.

The picture is not much brighter if one looks at average weekly earnings, a function of hours worked and hourly wages. Average weekly wages in both July and August were up just 1.7 per cent from a year earlier.

If this trend continues, it is likely to further undermine a weak recovery, negatively impacting upon consumer spending and perhaps serving as the tipping point to deflation of the housing bubble.

Ken Battle of the Caledon Institute has written a very useful report: Restoring Minimum Wages in Canada. It contains a wealth of data on minimum wage trends by province since 1965 and their changing relationship to average wages and to the low income line.

Battle shows that, in almost all provinces and territories, with the notable exception of B.C., minimum wages rose from the early years of the past decade, restoring a lot of lost ground. He suggests that further progress will require general agreement on a minimum wage standard (e.g. 50% of average earnings), and indexing of minimum wages (to prices or to average wages) once they reach that level.