America's upper middle class swells, driven by wage growth

More American families are climbing into higher income brackets, The Wall Street Journal reports. About 31% of Americans qualified as upper middle class in 2024, a jump from just 10% in 1979, according to the American Enterprise Institute. Pew Research found similar trends; "Everybody is doing better, but the upper income households are especially," says one Pew researcher. Wage growth has driven the ascent, per the Journal. However, families in this bracket say costs for housing and higher education still leave them feeling financially squeezed. READ MORE

I advised companies on what to pay people. Here are 4 myths you should ignore when negotiating your salary.

I'm a negotiation advisor, and my husband and I cofounded Yournegotiations.com. We help executives and mid-career professionals negotiate job offers and business deals.

I credit my negotiation expertise to a few things. First, I'm from Albania, which is a developing country. I had to navigate constrained resources my whole life. Second, I have a passion for behavioral science and psychology. READ MORE

What the ‘millionaire tax’ means for retention strategy

Multiple states are revisiting or advancing surcharges on million-dollar incomes. For HR leaders, the after-tax value of executive and high-earner compensation is becoming more volatile and more jurisdiction-sensitive.

“Democratic legislators in Washington state approved a bill that will place a 9.9% tax on those who earn more than $1 million. That bill now heads to the state governor’s desk,” according to Marketplace, a public media outlet. READ MORE

How the C-Suite Is Evolving: NEO Titles and Compensation at US Public Companies

NEOs at US public companies are the top executives whose compensation must be disclosed in detail under Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules, generally including the CEO, CFO, and up to three other highest-paid executive officers. This information is disclosed in the annual proxy statement (DEF 14A), primarily in the Compensation Discussion and Analysis (CD&A) and related tables; and supports shareholder oversight, proxy voting, and assessments of executive pay and accountability. READ MORE

What the ‘millionaire tax’ means for retention strategy

Multiple states are revisiting or advancing surcharges on million-dollar incomes. For HR leaders, the after-tax value of executive and high-earner compensation is becoming more volatile and more jurisdiction-sensitive.

“Democratic legislators in Washington state approved a bill that will place a 9.9% tax on those who earn more than $1 million. That bill now heads to the state governor’s desk,” according to Marketplace, a public media outlet. READ MORE

Popular Gen Z Job Sees Salaries Soar

Shark Tank's Kevin O’Leary says the most valuable job in today’s economy doesn’t require a four‑year degree, an engineering background or even a traditional résumé. Instead, it requires a phone, an understanding of social media platforms—and the ability to turn content into customers.

With student loan debt ballooning and salaries not keeping pace, buying a house, having kids and other life milestones are feeling more out of reach for younger generations, prompting them to seek out less traditional ways of making money. Once dismissed as a side hustle or vanity career, social media influencing has rapidly evolved into one of the most lucrative—and measurable—jobs in the modern economy. As companies shift marketing dollars toward platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, creators who effectively know how to turn content into customers are commanding six‑figure paydays. READ MORE

Stability Over Salary: 67% of New Graduates Would Take Lower Pay for Security

As the Class of 2026 prepares to enter the workforce, new survey data from Monster® shows graduates adopting a pragmatic approach to their careers, prioritizing stability over status in an uncertain job market.

According to Monster's 2026 State of the Graduate Report, two-thirds of graduates (67%) say they would accept a lower-paying job if it offered greater long-term career security. While salary remains a top consideration when evaluating job offers (68%), job security (52%) now ranks above career growth opportunities (49%) among graduates' top priorities. READ MORE

Variable pay dominates – high-net-worth individuals expect non-salary income to play a bigger role

High-net-worth individuals increasingly expect a greater proportion of their total annual income to come from non-salary sources, such as carry distributions, bonuses, dividends and business sale proceeds, according to research released by Investec.

In the Investec survey, 85% of respondents say they expect a higher proportion of their total annual income to come from non-salary sources in future, including 64% who expect that proportion to rise slightly and 21% who expect it to rise significantly. Only 15% do not expect the proportion of income from non-salary sources to increase. READ MORE

Which Bachelor's Degrees Lead to the Highest Salaries and Most In-Demand Fields

If you're looking to get a high-paying job with security, you may need to look to the sky when considering what to major in.

Aerospace engineering graduates earn a median of $125,000 mid-career and face only a 1.4% unemployment rate. A degree in aerospace engineering has a starting salary of around $76,000, which is in line with the median pay for all workers with a bachelor's degree in 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering is the degree that's most likely to land you a high-paying, stable job, according to Federal Reserve data. READ MORE

There’s Only One Way to Get More Money at Work. Some People Absolutely Refuse to Do It.

If you could earn thousands of dollars more a year just by having a two-minute conversation, would you do it? That might sound like an easy “Yes,” but for a lot of people, the answer, surprisingly, is no.

A startling number of people don’t negotiate their salary when they’re offered a job or haven’t had a raise in a long time. Over more than a decade of writing an advice column about work, I’ve been stunned by how frequently people tell me they’ve never fought for bigger numbers, not even once during their careers. Instead, they accept the first number an employer offers, because they’re worried that they’ll look greedy or mercenary. This strikes me as odd—the whole reason we work is for pay! And that conservative approach leaves people making far less than they could earn if they pushed past the discomfort and spoke up. READ MORE

A Safer Meta Starts With How Its Executives Are Paid

Meta’s back-to-back courtroom losses in New Mexico and Los Angeles courts this week represent the first time that litigators have bypassed Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which protects online platforms from liability for user-posted content. Although Section 230 still shields platforms from being treated as publishers of user-generated content, juries in New Mexico and Los Angeles found Meta liable for platform design features that cause personal injury to children.

Following these novel legal theories driving landmark rulings — which Meta says it respectfully disagrees with — the time has come for Meta’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, to apply the nimbleness he honed building Meta and practicing mixed martial arts to the company’s executive compensation structure. It’s time to tie Meta’s executive compensation to child safety. READ MORE

Security, DEI And Tariffs: Executive Compensation Insights From Late 2025 And Early 2026 Proxy Filers

As a follow-up to last year’s review of the first 100 S&P 500 proxy filers in 2025, Pearl Meyer examined executive compensation disclosures from 37 S&P 500 companies whose fiscal year ended between August and November 2025 and who filed shareholder proxy statements by February 6, 2026. Our focus was on examining trends related to current topics of interest among compensation committees.  READ MORE

2026 Update: Nonprofit Compensation Packages of $1 Million or More

The list below includes the top three compensation packages of $1 million or more at each nonprofit rated by CharityWatch. The Compensation column includes total of base compensation, bonus and incentive compensation, retirement and deferred compensation, nontaxable benefits, and other reportable compensation as reported to the IRS (Form W-2, 1099-MISC, and/or 1099-NEC), excluding any amounts already reported by the organization in a prior year IRS Form 990. Retirement payouts, deferred compensation, severance, and bonuses that (a) comprise 75% or more of total annual compensation, or (b) total to $1 million or more are footnoted. Footnotes with additional detail are provided below certain individuals on the list. READ MORE

Employer Costs for Employee Compensation for the Regions — December 2025

Private industry employer costs for employee compensation among the four regions of the country ranged from $41.21 per hour in the South to $53.99 in the Northeast in December 2025, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. In the other two regions, hourly employer costs for employee compensation stood at $43.26 in the Midwest and $50.85 in the West. (See chart 1.) In addition to regional estimates, employer costs for nine smaller geographic divisions are also available. Within divisions, total compensation costs ranged from $36.70 per hour in the East South Central division to $54.56 in the Pacific division. (See table 1.) Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC) are based on the National Compensation Survey, which measures employer costs for wages, salaries, and employee benefits. READ MORE

Pay transparency laws surge: how to turn compliance into strategy

Compliance is a quickly changing challenge for today’s HR leaders, with patchworks of local, state and federal laws testing HR’s ability to keep up. The challenge becomes even greater for the increasing number of organizations deploying talent across the globe. While the increasing pace of change is universal, pay transparency is one of the areas in which compliance regulations are evolving most quickly.

According to new research from Mercer, by 2025, more than two-thirds of organizations around the world had implemented or were in the process of implementing a pay transparency strategy. That figure stands at 81% for U.S.-based organizations, where 48% share pay information both internally and externally. READ MORE

How executive pay parity is redefining women in leadership

International Women’s Day is a reminder that, while progress has been made, there is still work to be done—especially at the executive level. For years, gender equity at this level has been tied to representation, but compensation is the more meaningful signal.

Recent data from the World Economic Forum estimates it will take 123 years for women in North America to reach economic parity. However, new data from ON Partners’ Women’s Report tells a more encouraging story at the top levels of leadership. Across the senior vice president and chief financial officer levels, women are making more than men in similar roles—and in tech, where the playing field has historically titled male, female CTO and CITO executives have ranked among the top earners in placements over the past two years. READ MORE