U.S. salary increase budgets hit 20-year high

U.S. employers made bold moves this year on compensation, pushing salary increase budgets to a 20-year high, despite fears of resurgent inflation and recession, according to a WorldatWork survey released this week. But the momentum is expected to slow by next year.

Increases to salary budgets rose to 4.4% on average this year, slightly higher than earlier projections of 4.1%, and also marking the highest level since the 2001 peak of 4.5%, according to the survey of more than 2,000 U.S. employers. Last year, salary increase budgets stood at 4.1%. READ MORE

Walmart's pay change for entry-level employees another signal of easing labor market

Walmart's (WMT) updated pay structure sent another signal to Wall Street that the labor market appears to be shifting.

In mid-July, Walmart changed the way it pays entry-level workers. Stockers and personal shoppers for online orders who join the Walmart workforce now make the same starting wage as cashiers — about $1 less per hour than the starting wage for those roles three months ago. Pay for existing workers did not change. READ MORE

Meet a 29-year-old accountant whose ‘resentment’ only climbed after her firm raised her salary from $60k to $90k as she made millions for them. She has her own firm now

Stephanie Heredia’s promotion came a year too late and more than a few dollars short. Heredia, 29, started an accountant job at a small Tampa, Florida firm, with the promise that her $60,000 base salary would rise to $100,000 after one year.

But at the last minute, she told Fortune, the timeline became two years. Her eventual salary—$90,000, plus commissions. As the firm grew from four people to 25, Heredia’s responsibilities ballooned. She was charged with opening a new unit in Puerto Rico, which went on to generate an additional $2 million annually for the firm, but asking for a raise felt “like talking to a brick wall,” Heredia said. READ MORE

Workers are finally seeing real wage gains

Labor Day was created over a century ago to commemorate the achievements of the American workforce, and in 2023 the nation's 167 million workers have something to celebrate: wage gains that are putting them ahead of inflation. 

Wage growth has been particularly strong for low-paid workers since March 2020, when the pandemic shut down the U.S. economy, said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. Because of government stimulus such as expanded unemployment benefits, low-paid workers had a stronger safety net as they looked for better-paying jobs. As a result, many employers have boosted pay during the past three years. READ MORE

See the leaked Google data that reveals salaries, bonuses and more

Big Tech giants make up a significant portion of the highest-paying employers in the U.S. The median salary at social media giant Meta  (META) - Get Free Report was $296,000 for 2022, making it the second highest-paying employer in the country; Google parent Alphabet  (GOOG) - Get Free Report took third place, clocking in at around $280,000, beating out ETSY  (ETSY) - Get Free Report, which came in at $248,000. 

And even as tech companies across the board have been working to trim their staffs, conducting mass layoffs, annual compensation has been shooting up lately, according to The Street's Brian O'ConnellREAD MORE

An employer’s guide to benefits and salary research

Hiring has become a minefield for employers. Why? Many business owners are facing challenges with recruiting and retaining top level staff. Employers are locked in a competitive battle to attract new talent, with the added pressure of retaining existing key players.

So, it’s time to assemble your benefits packages to come out ahead of your competitors, lock down that ideal candidate and win the war for talent. READ MORE

Cybersecurity Enters Conversation About Executive Pay

Companies are starting to tie bonuses for their chief executives and other top leaders to cybersecurity metrics, a move that governance experts say could make them more secure against hackers.

The practice is inching up among the biggest U.S. companies, with nine of the Fortune 100 companies linking a portion of short-term bonuses for named executive officers to a cyber goal in 2022, according to new research from accounting and consulting firm EY. That is up from zero in 2018, EY said. READ MORE

DOL Proposes $55K for New Overtime Rule Threshold

After several delays, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) on Wednesday proposed an increase of the minimum salary threshold for overtime eligibility under the Fair Labor Standards Act to $55,068 per year, which would guarantee overtime pay for most salaried workers earning less than $1,059 per week.  

In its releaseOpen in a new tab, the DOL announced in a notice of proposed rulemaking that the new threshold would restore and extend overtime protections to an estimated 3.6 million salaried workers.  READ MORE

Employers have had enough and are starting to cut salary offers by as much as 47%

After a few years of hefty pay increases for new hires, the trend is reversing, potentially spelling the end to a brief golden age of wage growth for job seekers.

That's according to data collected by online job board ZipRecruiter, which analyzed year-over-year changes in pay posted for more than 20,000 online job ads. It found that the average posted pay for more job titles declined more than increased so far this year. Last year, the opposite was true: Three-quarters of job posts offered higher pay compared to 2021. Additionally, 48% of companies surveyed by ZipRecruiter in July said they had reduced pay for certain roles this year. READ MORE

Google and Meta are the best-paying Big Tech companies for engineers

Google and Meta tend to pay their software engineers more than their peers in Big Tech, according to new data from Blind, an anonymous forum for tech employees.

Apple and Microsoft, meanwhile, pay the least for entry-level engineers on average, though compensation tends to become more comparable across Big Tech for senior talent. Amazon’s promotions can take longer than its peers, and its pay ranges for engineers are the widest. READ MORE

When Market Value Isn’t Enough: The Pitfalls of Objectively Measured Just Compensation

When we take on an eminent domain case, our primary goal is to put our client in the best position possible.  In some cases, that means fighting the taking itself, as my dad (and boss) did in the well-known Wayne County v. Hathcock case, which established a new precedent for what constitutes a “public use” for which the government may condemn private land in Michigan.  In other cases, our primary objective is to maximize the compensation available to our clients. READ MORE

Minimum Wage is ‘Increasingly Meaningless’ in Today’s Economy — These States Pay 50% More Hourly Than Required

Since July 24, 2009, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. This is the longest period without an increase since the nationwide minimum was established in 1938, according to The New York Times. Individual states can raise the minimum wage for their residents and many do.

But in the aftermath of essential workers, early retirement, rage quitting, quiet quitting, loud quitting and plain old quitting the U.S. saw a labor market in which there were 5 million more job openings than unemployed people. This created a space for workers to negotiate higher wages and has essentially “rendered the minimum wage increasingly meaningless,” according to the New York Times. READ MORE

The White House annual staff report reignites debate on the gender pay gap

The White House recently released its annual report to Congress on White House Office staff which included their yearly salaries. An analysis of the report conducted by Mark Perry, first reported in the Wall Street Journal, revealed that women working for the White House earned 80 cents for every $1 paid to men on average, and escalated the conversation around the concept of the gender pay gap around the U.S.

The gender wage gap, as defined by the U.S. Department of Labor, is a calculation based on “earnings data for women and men who work full-time, year-round in order to control for differences in work hours and experience”. However, some describe the phenomenon as a more nuanced subject. READ MORE

Which states will increase their minimum wage in 2024?

In the United States, the federal minimum wage has been $7.50 an hour for about 14 years, marking the longest period without an increase since the base salary was created in 1938.

However, 30 states, including California, Florida, and New York, as well as the District of Columbia, have adopted wages above the federal minimum.

Some of these states have legislation that establishes automatic increases at the beginning of the year, while others link the increases to salaries in relation to changes in the cost of living and inflation. READ MORE