Today he says that “private-sector wages…continue to run well below pre-crisis levels”, and uses this graph to support that claim:

Average hourly earnings of all employees

He’s not being quite accurate. As you can see from the y-axis, that’s year-over-year *growth* in hourly wages. Since the y-axis is everywhere above zero, we conclude that wages have always been growing. They’ve just been growing less than they were before the crisis.

…Which is Krugman’s point, I think. The main argument for increasing interest rates is to keep inflation in check. Inflation might be running amok if labor costs are skyrocketing. Labor costs are not skyrocketing; they’re under control. If interest rates need to rise now because labor costs are out of control, then they needed to rise back in 2007-2009 as well.

My buddy FRED will show you average earnings, as opposed to year-over-year change in earnings.

Honestly, this was probably just a typo on Krugman’s part. In context it’s obvious what he meant. But I would be shocked if the typo didn’t start propagating.