Talk it up

At FRED Blog: The evolution of employment costs in the private and public sectors. They show "wages and salaries" for public- and private-sector workers --

and they say

The graph above tells us that wages and salaries have increased faster in the private sector. But, as both series are normalized to 100 in 2007, we can’t say whether wages had been better in the public sector and the private sector is just now catching up.

I take their graph, change the units to "Percent Change from Year Ago" --

and I wonder why they are talking about increase.

//

They show "benefits" for public- and private-sector workers --

and they say

Again, this graph says nothing about the levels. However, the two graphs in combination do tell us something: Relatively speaking, compensation in the public sector is increasingly in the form of benefits, while compensation in the private sector is increasingly in the form of wages and salaries.

I take their graph, change the units to "Percent Change from Year Ago" --

and again, I have to wonder why they are talking about increase.