San José, CA - On Friday, Jan. 15, the Department of Labor released reports on inflation and real earnings (wages adjusted for inflation) for 2009. The rate of increases in prices for workers who live in cities was moderate, at 3.4%. This figure was higher than the official inflation rate of 2.7%. However wages failed to keep up with the rise in prices, so weekly real earnings, or the purchasing power of workers' weekly wages, fell by 1.6% in 2009. This fall in wages was mainly because the average increase in hourly wages was less than the rise in prices.