US Real Wages Fall 0.5% as Energy Inflation Wipes Out Monthly Gains
📉 WAGES — Iran's Hormuz strategy just showed up in American paychecks. 📌 LOOK CLOSER: Real wage erosion translates Hormuz disruption into a domestic political cost. With midterms days away, energy-driven inflation hitting workers directly is the mechanism Tehran calculated when it throttled the strait. SPR releases stabilized prices at the margin — not enough to prevent this. Working households absorbing the loss are the electoral variable Iran's strategists were targeting.