LuduviceTruss-WilliamsWalker_InfWageGrowth

Overview

This repository contains the code and data associated with the FRBC’s Economic Commentary “Did Inflation Affect Households Differently? A Look at the Postpandemic Inflation and Wage Growth Dynamics” by André Victor D. Luduvice, Anaya M. Truss-Williams, and Christopher J. Walker.

The data and code in this replication package implement the data transformations and calculations using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Current Population Survey (CPS) via the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta and Kansas City (FRBA and FRBKC, respectively). Additional data is retrieved from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’s FRED database for the production of the figures. The code languages used are R and Stata.

Recommended Citation

Luduvice, André Victor D., Truss-Williams, Anaya, and Christopher J. Walker. 2025. "Did Inflation Affect Households Differently? A Look at the Postpandemic Inflation and Wage Growth Dynamics." Economic Commentary, no. 2025-11 (October). https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-ec-202511.

Contents

• Data

  • CPS_harmonized_variable_longitudinally_matched_age16plus.dta: Raw wage growth data from the CPS used in the analysis. Provided by the FRBKC's CADRE.
  • r-cpi-i-data.xlsx: Raw R-CPI-I data used in the analysis. Provided by the BLS.
  • r-c-cpi-i-data.xlsx: Raw R-C-CPI-I data used in the analysis. Provided by the BLS
  • wage_data_worker.csv: Data generated in AL_AT_CW_2025_Replication_Wage_Converter.do.
  • eq_indwages_hh_data.csv: Data generated in AL_AT_CW_2025_Replication_Wage_Converter.do.
  • wage_quintile_annualized.csv: Data generated in AL_AT_CW_2025_Replication_Wage_Cleaning.R
  • cpi_disagg_yoy.csv: Data generated in AL_AT_CW_2025_Replication_Wage_Cleaning.R
  • eq_indwages_hh_annualized.csv: Data generated in AL_AT_CW_2025_Replication_Graphing_Eq_Earn_PP.R

• Scripts

  • AL_AT_CW_2025_Replication_Wage_Converter.do: Stata do-file for generation of wage growth data.
  • AL_AT_CW_2025_Replication_Master.R: Master script for running the replication package.
  • AL_AT_CW_2025_Replication_Wage_Cleaning.R: Script for data cleaning and transformations.
  • AL_AT_CW_2025_Replication_Graphing_Earn_Inf.R: Generates Figures 1–3 and A.1–A.3.
  • AL_AT_CW_2025_Replication_Graphing_Eq_Earn_PP.R: Generates Figures 4–5 and A.4–A.6.
  • AL_AT_CW_2025_Replication_Graphing_ExtraChart.R: Generates Figure A.3.
  • AL_AT_CW_2025_Replication_Appendix.R: Exports the appendix figures created in the graphing scripts.

• Output

  • This folder stores all output generated by the scripts. It will be automatically generated by the R code and will house the output figures.

Quick Instructions

1. Download all the data files and save them in the Data folder;
2. Run AL_AT_CW_2025_Replication_Wage_Converter.do;
3. Run AL_AT_CW_2025_Replication_Master.R;
4. All graphs should be automatically saved in separate folders in the Output folder.

Data Availability

All data used in this Commentary are publicly available.

This Commentary uses data from BLS's CPS via the FRBKC's Center for the Advancement of Data and Research in Economics (CADRE). The data is the Atlanta Fed’s Harmonized Variable and Longitudinally Matched dataset. Note: the data is not provided. It can be freely donwloaded from https://cps.kansascityfed.org/.

This Commentary uses raw data from the BLS's R-CPI-I and R-C-CPI-I series. Note: the data are provided at the Data folder. They can be freely downloaded from https://www.bls.gov/cpi/research-series/r-cpi-i.htm.

This Commentary uses raw data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’s FRED database for the CPI-U index and for the NBER's recession indicators. Note: the data are not provided. The data are downloaded in running time with the use of FRED's API key. The data can be freely downloaded from https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USRECD and https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL.

Notes:
The API key necessary to retrieve data from the FRED database is used in the recession shading routine called in script AL_AT_CW_2025_Replication_Master.R and in the data pull command for the CPI-U in script AL_AT_CW_2025_Replication_Wage_Cleaning.R. A key can be requested at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/docs/api/api_key.html.

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.