Who got a 7% raise this year?

In this week’s U.S. News & World Report, I read through an article on the U.S. Economy by James Pethokoukis entitled “Gloom and Doom, or Zoom.” Most of the article was about whoever wins the Democratic Nomination will be a shoe-in for the Presidency based upon the economy (with a little back-tracking at the end). But what really interested me was this statement he made near the very end of the article: “As it is, with wages up 7 percent the past year and consumption up 6 percent, consumers seem to be crying all the way to the mall.”

Two things bothered me about this statement. First, wages up 7 percent? I have not read that anywhere else. If true, that would be good news (at least for everyone else – I didn’t get that this year!). Second, that spending rose almost as much as wages. Can’t we Americans ever save anything?