Average US Salary Statistics 2026: Median Income by Age and State

The median American full-time worker earned $1,235 a week in the first quarter of 2026, which works out to about $64,220 over a full year. That single figure hides a wide spread once you separate the four different ways the federal government measures pay, and it sits well above the wage a worker in the exact middle of the distribution actually takes home. READ MORE

Median CEO pay hits $17.5 mn as say-on-pay support reaches 93.3 percent, research shows

Median CEO compensation among S&P 500 companies reached a record $17.5 mn in fiscal 2025, up from previous years, new research shows.

Meanwhile, median pay across the Russell 3000 excluding the S&P 500 remained broadly stable at approximately $5.5 mn, according to ISS-Corporate’s 2026 US Compensation Post-Season Review report. Since 2021, median CEO pay has increased 20 percent in the S&P 500 compared with 5 percent among the rest of the Russell 3000. READ MORE

Liberal stronghold set to adopt eye-popping minimum wage amid business exodus

Seattle is slated to increase its minimum wage to $22.14 an hour in 2027 as the broader metro area contends with a sharp drop in job openings and Seattle businesses face mounting cost pressures.

Beginning in 2025, all Seattle employers, including small businesses, were required to pay the same minimum wage, which is adjusted annually for inflation. Several Seattle restaurant owners who have since closed their businesses have cited rising labor costs among the financial pressures that contributed to their decisions. READ MORE

The Gap Between the Rich and the Very, Very Rich Is Getting Wider

The ultrawealthy aren’t just pulling away from average Americans. Buoyed by a stock-market boom that has added trillions of dollars to their net worth, the extremely rich are even pulling away from other rich Americans.

The top 0.1% wealthiest Americans have seen their total wealth more than double since the end of 2019, according to new data from the Federal Reserve. The year the pandemic started was when the ultrawealthy began to pull away from other rich groups, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Fed data. READ MORE

Senate passes 'Save College Sports Act,' sparking debate over athlete compensation limits

In a 77-22 vote, the U.S. Senate passed the Save College Sports Act, which is intended to limit collegiate spending on athletics. At its core, the bill sets a hard cap on what schools can spend on players, with the figure set at nearly $50 million per school year.

It also adds protections for non-revenue sports, such as soccer, so a school couldn't cut those programs for at least the next nine years. READ MORE

Employee is told that the promotion she applied for is being dissolved, she gets given the role's responsibilities anyway with no extra pay

We all know this feeling: Your boss is finally moving on to another job or has received a promotion of their own. This means that the position that they were hanging onto like a bad habit is finally open. That, or some other position that is a lateral move with more growth opportunity and surprisingly better pay, has opened up on another team.

There has been no chance for growth or career advancement in your current position for years. You'd been feeling a little stressed and burned out, but this, this is enough to perk your motivation, and you can practically feel yourself sitting up straighter at your desk. READ MORE

Senate bill would cap political appointee pay at congressional salaries

A bill introduced in the U.S. Senate would cap the salaries of political appointees so they could not earn more than members of Congress.

But which congressional salary the cap would use remains unclear.

The bill, officially filed as Senate Bill 5503, was introduced by Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana at the end of last week, Sept. 24. The bill text had not yet been released, leaving details unclear. It already has the backing of fellow Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. READ MORE

Is a six-figure salary still the benchmark for financial success?

For decades, earning a six-figure salary has been viewed as a major financial milestone — a sign that you've officially "made it." But $100,000 doesn't stretch as far as it once did. 

Because inflation has driven up prices for everything from housing to groceries, a six-figure income may provide a comfortable lifestyle in some parts of the country while still feeling tight in others. READ MORE

Companies Are Spending On AI Instead Of Compensation -- 5 Ways To Still Get A Raise

54% of companies have reduced or will reduce employee compensation to free up capital for AI spending in 2026, according to a survey of 866 US business leaders conducted by Resume Builder. Various forms of compensation are on the cutting board – bonuses, equity, raises, benefits, even base salaries. However, 71% of survey respondents will give performance-based raises tied to individual results.

That last finding is key: if you’re looking to make more money, you still can. What companies are doing in general or on average doesn’t necessarily apply to you as an individual. READ MORE

Renters across America are catching a break, but not in NYC, where a studio takes a $153K salary

Living alone in New York City still requires a very Carrie Bradshaw-sized fantasy budget — or, more realistically, a six-figure salary.

A solo renter in New York would need to earn $153,600 a year before taxes to comfortably afford the city’s typical studio, according to The Economist’s latest “Carrie Bradshaw Index,” named for the “Sex and the City” heroine famous for living alone in Manhattan on a columnist’s salary.

The typical studio payment in New York is $3,840 a month, according to the index, which assumes renters should spend no more than 30% of their gross income on housing. READ MORE

Average Salary by Age: How Earnings Change and When Pay Peaks Throughout Your Career

Once you’ve settled into a job, it’s easy to fall into the rhythm of meetings, deadlines, and regular paychecks.

You may not think much about how your income compares to others. But seeing how your salary stacks up by age—and how earnings rise and fall over time, including which group earns the most—can give you a better sense of your financial trajectory. READ MORE

S&P 500 CEO pay hits $17.5M as equity awards reshape executive compensation

Median CEO pay at S&P 500 companies reached $17.5 million in 2026, up 6% from the prior year and 63% higher than the $10.7 million recorded in 2017, according to a new report by The Conference Board.

The report, created with compensation consulting firm FW Cook and ESG data analytics firm ESGAUGE, found that across the broader Russell 3000, the median CEO pay rose 7% to $7.1 million. READ MORE

When My Coworkers and I Realized We Were Being Underpaid, We Fought for a Pay Bump and Won

It's not like I walked in and wrote a number on a napkin and slid it across the table. It's actually a bit more nuanced than that. I work in sports media, and there was a pay disparity that was uncovered at our company and made public to some employees unintentionally. At first, I just felt rage. We're talking about a life-changing amount of money. Then I realized there was an opportunity to do something about it.

I became active in creating an employee resource group for Black employees. The goal was to mobilize our colleagues and establish clear guidelines for things like salaries, promotions, and annual reviews. Once we did that, we presented to leadership and even the owner—and we set out to get some answers. READ MORE

Wage suppression in 10 charts

Wages for typical workers have been largely suppressed since the 1970s. The 10 charts below tell that story.

In the following 10 charts, we outline the historical context of workers’ wage trajectories since the 1970s. For most of those years, wages for the majority of workers were essentially stagnant. Two periods, the late 1990s and the last decade, saw decent wage growth, which kept cumulative wage growth since 1979 well above zero. But those years were the exception, not the norm. More importantly, even with those two periods, wages for typical workers lagged far behind productivity growth—meaning there was the potential for wages to rise far faster than they did. Had workers’ wages kept up with productivity, their annual earnings would have been roughly $30,000 higher. READ MORE

DoorDash Agrees to $131.5 Million Settlement for Shortchanging Workers

DoorDash has agreed to pay $131.5 million in a settlement with New York City that allows closer monitoring of its payment methods after it underpaid or failed to pay 264,000 delivery workers.

The action is the latest effort spanning three mayoral administrations to crack down on delivery companies that city officials and others have long accused of mistreating workers who are considered independent contractors. READ MORE

New York’s Proposed Wage Payment Integrity Act: What Employers Should Be Doing Now

New York lawmakers have passed Senate Bill 2236-A, known as the “Wage Payment Integrity Act” (the “Act”), which would significantly expand what qualifies as protected “wages” under the New York Labor Law (“NYLL”) and would give employees enhanced tools to recover unpaid compensation. The Act would modify NYLL §§ 190, 195, and 198-c to widen the statutory meaning of “wages,” establish a rigorous disclosure standard for any compensation an employer wishes to classify as purely discretionary, introduce an evidentiary presumption against employers where an employer fails to provide written employment terms, and clarify civil remedies available to higher-paid employees. Should the Act become law, any employee compensation not expressly reserved to the employer’s sole and absolute discretion could fall within the statutory definition of wages, representing a major shift that could capture bonuses historically treated as discretionary and outside the scope of the Act (e.g., those linked to team performance, departmental objectives, or company-wide results). READ MORE

Falling behind? State and local government employee compensation since the Great Recession

New research by Byron Lutz and David Ratner of the Federal Reserve Board and Louise Sheiner of the Hutchins Center on compensation of state and local government employees goes beyond wages to put a dollar value on the benefits that standard compensation metrics mismeasure or leave out entirely: defined benefit pensions, retiree health care, and job security. They find that compensation of state and local workers has fallen substantially relative to comparable private sector workers since the Great Recession. READ MORE

Employee demands 10% raise because he's bilingual, even though his second language is Welsh: 'The manager then told me that the policy meant Spanish'

It's a perk for anyone to be bilingual, but in this workplace environment, it served as justification for a raise.

That's because employees at this company were often required to take work trips to other offices and sites where colleagues and clients did not necessarily speak English. Recently, in order to attract more bilingual employees to the company (and in order to reward current employees who often have to be the point people in these communications), a new policy was enforced where bilingual employees would be granted a 10% raise. Given that these employees often had to take the reins for a lot of these conversations with non-English-speaking clients, the policy seemed fair enough. READ MORE

AI Is Hollowing Out Software Jobs — But Paying Survivors a Fortune

An Indeed Hiring Lab report published last week quantified what software workers have felt for two years: the people still getting hired earn far more, and there are far fewer of them. Advertised pay in the most AI-exposed US occupations has climbed roughly 46% since the start of 2021, compared with 25% for the least-exposed jobs, including nursing, food prep, and cleaning. The gap started widening in 2024 and continues now. READ MORE

Congratulations, you're a manager now! But there's no promotion — or a raise

You entered your profession because you wanted to teach, code, write, create, or design. But thanks to AI — and the immense pressure to use it — you now spend less time practicing your craft and more time managing the technology that's doing the work you wanted to do.

For many professionals, that means supervising agents: tools designed to perform tasks autonomously but that, in practice, require workers to set expectations, delegate assignments, evaluate performance, demand revisions, and intervene when things go wrong. Others manage a steady pipeline of AI-generated work, reviewing the output and taking responsibility for what ultimately ships. READ MORE