Nonetheless, a strong signal of inflation pressures building because of compensation increases markedly in excess of productivity gains has not yet clearly emerged in this expansion.
Among nonfinancial corporations (our most recent source of data on consolidated income statements), trends in costs seem to have accelerated from their lows, but the rates of increase in both unit labor costs and total unit costs are still quite low. Still, the gap between the growth in employment and that of the working-age population will inevitably close.