Wisconsin wages going in the right direction

Saw this interesting headline yesterday.

A report from ADP showed that Wisconsin workers median annual pay was at $59,000 in May, a 5.3% increase from last year at this time. https://t.co/77bEklND1l

— JSOnline - NewsWatch (@js_newswatch) June 10, 2024

The June 5 report from payroll company ADP shows that the median annual pay in Wisconsin in May reached $59,000, up 5.3% from a year ago. That slightly beat out the nationwide median pay of $58,300 and 5% increases.

ADP’s report uses salary data from about 10 million employees over a 12-month period to calculate the data, it said in a media release....

That same report showed that, nationally, people who change jobs saw higher spikes than those who stayed in their jobs. While stayers got a 5% increase, those who switched jobs got a 7.8% increase.

Pretty good news for workers in this state, and all the more impressive when you dig into the report, and see that Wisconsin's 5.3% increase in median wage among its cohort of workers who stay at their jobs outpaces every other state in the Midwest.

Median annual pay increase, ADP Report, May 2024
Wis. +5.3%
Minn +5.1%
Ind. +5.0%
Mich +4.9%
Ohio +4.7%
Iowa +4.6%
Ill. +4.3%

That came a few days after the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) gave a rundown of year-over-year growth at the end 2023 for the average weekly wage in all counties in the US, including Wisconsin. The QCEW said average weekly wages grew by 3.6% nationwide and 3.9% in Wisconsin, placing the state 2nd in the Midwest (just behind Iowa's 4.0% increase).

If you move that back to the end of 2019 (before the COVID pandemic), Wisconsin's average weekly wage grew by 20.76% over that four-year time period, beating the 19.37% increase in the Consumer Price Index over the same time, and just below the 21.09% increase in the US. And much like with job growth, there was wide variation among Wisconsin counties in wage growth over those 4 years, with the fastest growth happening in lower-wage rural counties (with the exception of Kenosha and St Croix Counties).

The Wisconsin counties that lag for wage growth also are largely rural, but they also include 3 counties with UW campuses, along with Waukesha County.

Yes, it's worth noting that Wisconsin's wages still are overall lower than the national average, but it is good to see that growth in 2023 was above the US average and among the best growth in the Midwest. And while not everybody's experience with inflation is the same (especially if housing, food, and gas take up more of your expenses than most people's), but in general, wages in Wisconsin have beaten inflation over the 2019-2023 period. Combine that with more jobs in that time period for the state and the country, and I'd say that's a better situation than we had before COVID became a thing.