What’s up with wages?

The unemployment rate has reached an 18-year low of 3.8 percent, and employers are posting more jobs than there are unemployed workers. So all’s well with the job market, right?

Not necessarily. -%1)#!.2’ paychecks aren’t growing nearly as fast as you might expect given unemployment this low. In May, average hourly pay rose 2.8 percent from a year earlier, for all workers except managers and supervisors. That’s before adjusting for inflation.

It’s better than in the years that followed the Great Recession, when wage growth was as low as 1.2 percent in 2012. But it’s still lower than the last time unemployment was this low: In 2000, average annual pay growth reached 4 percent. There are many possible reasons for the sluggish pace of pay growth: Higher-paid baby boomers are retiring en masse and being replaced by lower-paid younger workers. Companies, still scarred by the recession, may still be reluctant to raise pay. .$ %#/./-)232 2!8 workers now have less bargaining power because of the decline of unions and because more industries are dominated by a few large companies, thereby reducing options to leave for better-paying jobs.