Wage Leg

The realized-wage channel of the rate-character family: what workers are actually paid (AHE y/y level + slope) vs what the breakeven market expects. Separates a DISINFLATIONARY SLOWDOWN (wages cooling, payrolls holding — the Fed can stop) from a STAGFLATIONARY SLOWDOWN (wages falling because the labor market is breaking). Raw states WAGES-ACCELERATING / STABLE / SOFTENING with a goods/services decomposition flag; the two-sided classifier pairs wage softening with the absolute payroll stall bar (3-month change < 100K — a relative-to-trend bar was tested and rejected for misfiring in every healthy deceleration). Fleet map: ACCELERATING -> ELEVATED, STABLE -> NORMAL, SOFTENING -> LOW. Value = AHE y/y.