
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 28, 1993                   TAG: 9307280059
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

MODEST WAGE INCREASES SHOW STABLE INFLATION

Americans' wages, salaries and benefits rose 3.6 percent in the year ended June 30, a pace unchanged from a year earlier and the latest evidence that inflation was being kept in check.

"This is basically consistent with the more or less stable inflation picture that we have," said Sung Won Sohn, an economist with the Norwest Corp. in Minneapolis.

The Labor Department said Tuesday its Employment Cost Index, considered one of the best gauges of wage inflation pressures, also was little changed from the 3.5 percent increase it posted during the 12 months ended in March.

Wages and salaries, which account for 72 percent of employment costs, had risen 2.9 percent in the year ended in June 1992.

Benefit costs, on the other hand, rose 5.5 percent, slightly faster than the 5.3 percent pace a year earlier. Sohn attributed a significant portion of the benefit increase to health-care costs.

Compensation cost increases in private industry were higher for goods-producing industries, up 4.2 percent, than for service-producing industries, up 3.3 percent.

They also were higher for blue-collar workers, 3.8 percent, than for white-collar workers, 3.6 percent, and service workers, 3.3 percent.

Increases also were higher for union workers, 4.5 percent, than for nonunion workers, 3.4 percent, in both goods-producing and service-producing industries.

by CNB