This is a captured historical dataset, not a live economic feed. All series are monthly and seasonally adjusted. We preserve BLS footnotes, missing values and later snapshot revisions. A missing month is not zero and is not interpolated.

Average hourly earnings cover employees on private nonfarm payrolls. They are not median pay or the wage of the same workers over time; changes in the mix of jobs can change the average. CPI-U represents the U.S. city average for all urban consumers, not your household’s inflation or a state-specific price index.

State unemployment refers to residents and is a percentage of the labor force. Differences are not causal estimates or judgments about elected officials. National and state series have different estimation methods; states are not averaged to manufacture a national rate. No statistical-significance or uncertainty claim is calculated here.

Use earnings and CPI together for the explicit inflation adjustment below. Unemployment is not inflation-adjusted. Its change is measured in percentage points, not mislabeled as a percent change. Comparing dates demonstrates framing sensitivity, not proof of dishonest cherry-picking.

0 numeric revisions versus the previous published snapshot. This is the latest captured vintage for the chosen release, not a reconstruction of what people knew on each historical date.