Explain the Real wage with example

Consider following scenario. You work full time and during January 2008 you make 2000 euro after tax. A specific basket of services and goods costs 100 euro in January that means that your salary would buy you 20 such baskets.

In February, you receive a 10% wage increase and you have 2200 euro after tax. Does this imply that you can buy 10% more baskets - which is 22 - in February? Well, not essentially.

The number of baskets which you can buy in February relies on the possible changes in prices as well. If price of a basket increases by 3% to 103 euro your 2200 will buy you 2200/103 = 21.36 baskets of 7% more than in January. Albeit your wage has increased by 10%, you can only increase your consumption of baskets by 7%. We say that real wage has increased by 7%.