The Labor Department reported that the Employment Cost Index rose by just 0.2 percent in the second quarter. This brings the growth in the index over the last year to 2.0 percent. This undermines any claim that wage growth is accelerating.

With inflation still well under the Fed’s target of 2.0 percent as an average rate of inflation (not a ceiling), and wage growth remaining flat or possibly even falling, the Fed would have little basis for raising interest rates to slow the economy. With this most recent report it seems likely that the Fed will put off a rate hike until the end of the year at soonest.