The Harper government likes to remind Canadians that we’ve done better than most developed nations in bouncing back from the global economic crisis. But digging into the data shows why many people might be having trouble cheering this news: wages have not kept pace with inflation, and new hires are making 40 per cent less than the average worker.

Tiff Macklem, senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, recently brought home the official storyline: The level of employment is now higher than it was before the crisis; jobs are mostly being created in the private sector, most are full-time and are emerging in industries that pay above-average wages.

These are upbeat metrics, but they are irrelevant to the one thing that matters most to Canadian households and a sustained, broad-based recovery: how much people get paid.

On that count, the data reveal that purchasing power is falling for most Canadians since the recovery began. The average wage paid to Canadians has not kept up with inflation. Real average wages declined by 0.6 per cent between 2009 — the trough of the recession — and 2011, from $23.11 to $22.99. That may not sound like much, but that’s because the bottom half of the wage distribution losing ground faster than the top half. See the attached chart. (Data are from the Labour Force Survey public use microdata file)