Consumer spending continues to be restrained by stagnating wages, which is hurting the country’s economic recovery, Bloomberg reported.

The Labor Department reported last week that in August, average hourly earnings were little changed from the prior month and only up 1.7 percent from a year earlier, which is the smallest gain since records began in 2007.

The country added 96,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell to 8.1 percent as more people left the labor force.

High gasoline prices combined with limited employment and wage prospects are straining household budgets after the weakest quarter for spending in a year. Federal Reserve policy makers are meeting this week to consider further measures to spur the economy.

“Real wages are going nowhere — something between nowhere and down — depending on what occupation you are in,” Alan Blinder, a Princeton University economist and former Fed vice chairman, said in a Sept. 7 interview on Bloomberg Radio’s “Surveillance” with Tom Keene.

“With a weak labor market — and we have had a very weak labor market for four years — there is not a lot of prospect for a turnaround in that,” he told Bloomberg.