SAY HEY, PAY JUST INCHING ITS WAY UP

If you find you’re working more and enjoying it less, you’re not alone.

A U.S. Labor Department study shows that pay increased at the slowest pace on record for the first three months of the year.

Of course, that’s great news for inflation-scenting employers and economists.

“These numbers are just splendid. There’s absolutely no reason for the Fed to be worried,” said Susan Hering, top economist at Carr Futures in New York.

The numbers — half the 0.8% increase expected — were the lowest since the Employment Cost Index was started in 1982.

Closer to home, labor costs in the finance, insurance and real estate sector fell 0.7%, following a 1.1% increase in last year’s last quarter. Things may be turning around though, since new home sales were up in March, ending a three-month slide.

Consumer confidence climbed for the sixth straight month, too, the Conference Board reported, using different numbers. “We’re generating real wage growth faster than we’ve seen in a generation,” said James Annable, chief economist at Bank One Corp. in Chicago. “Last year, by our measure,” he said, real wages “grew by 3.5%.” He expects the same this year, too.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate in March sank to 4.2%, lower than Japan’s and the lowest level since 1970. Unemployment claims fell for the second week in a row, too, but wages show no real upward trend.

That’s what the financial entrails-watchers call a positive pricing environment.

Making hedge transparent

It’s spring, time to think once again about pruning hedges in the temperate (hah!) part of the country, which is perhaps what triggered a presidential working group’s report recommending that hedge funds be trimmed so investors can see what’s happening on the other side.

Prompted by the near-collapse last September of Long-Term Capital Management LP, the panel recommended that the funds be required to disclose information that they now hold sacred, including data on unregulated affiliates of securities houses. It would also require publicly traded companies to disclose how much they have invested in hedge funds.

And — get this — the group wants countries of convenience, like the Cayman Islands where Long-Term was incorporated, to adopt global regulatory standards.

The pie-in-the-sky panel includes representatives of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve System. Congress must act to give its pronouncements any punch.

Suddenly it’s 1960

Remember when BankAmerica Corp. was the Bank of America, the nation’s biggest bank? Well, nostalgia freaks, it is again, except, of course that its headquarters are in Charlotte, N.C., not San Francisco, and it’s No. 1 because it merged with NationsBank.

Stockholders voted to take the old name at the same meeting where they rejected limits on executive pay and platinum pushes-out-the-door, a $30 million one of which came with the merger for ex-BankAmerica ex-chief David Coulter. Nevertheless, CEO Hugh McColl kept his salary at $1 million and slashed his bonus from $3.5 million to $2.5 million in 1998. “We don’t take lightly what you say,” he responded when asked about pay.

Etc.: Big brass ring

Ernst & Young LLP is paying $185 million, without admitting fault, to settle claims of giving incompetent and fraudulent advice to the now-defunct Merry-Go-Round clothing chain…Harvey Golub, 60, chairman and chief executive of American Express Cos., said he’ll retire as CEO in two years and chairman in three. Company president Ken Chenault, 47, will take over both jobs … Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc., parent of Putnam Investments, topped Wall Street expectations with a 21% hike in first quarter net income to $279 million. Putnam’s top line was up 12% to $629 million.