Philadelphia Leads the U.S. in Wage Growth

(Bloomberg) -- Philadelphia is leading the country in wage growth among U.S. cities, according to a new report.

The City of Brotherly Love saw 2.8 percent wage growth since July 2017, bringing median base pay to $55,723 per year, according to Glassdoor Inc.’s Local Pay Report, which tracks wage growth in 10 cities through an analysis of anonymous salary data from millions of employees.

San Francisco saw 2.7 percent growth, New York City saw 2.6 percent growth and Los Angeles saw 2.6 percent growth, ranking as the cities with the next fastest pay gains. San Francisco boasted the highest median base pay at $69,404 per year—more than $17,000 above the national average.

“Cost of living is certainly one factor that’s driving up wages for workers in these cities,” wrote Alison Sullivan, career trends analyst at Glassdoor, in an email.

The Glassdoor report, which analyzed wage growth among 84 jobs across 15 industries, found that certain professions are making more headway than others. Jobs in the financial industry are seeing strong pay hikes in today’s bull market, according to the report. Bank tellers saw 8.2 percent growth in wages, while financial advisers saw 4.9 percent growth and financial managers saw 4.7 percent growth.

“Many of these bigger cities are also home to industries like tech, finance, and health care,” Sullivan said. “These industries have several high-demand roles they’re hiring for and employers are using higher pay as one mechanism to attract talent.”

Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Boston saw the lowest annual pay gains in July, increasing by 1.7 percent, 1.9 percent and 2 percent, respectively.

The Glassdoor report found that wages rose 2.2 percent nationwide since last July, the fastest pace in 14 months. Yet wage growth this year has been slower than economists and analysts anticipated, holding at 2.7 percent, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor. Despite low unemployment rates and a booming economy, U.S. wage gains notably missed forecasts in June. The difference in the data may be due to the fact that while the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates wages based on full-time, part-time and contracted employees nationwide, Glassdoor looks only at wages for certain full-time workers in a small sampling of cities.

Regardless of the conflicting numbers, “the steady uptick in Glassdoor’s data is generally a good sign for workers and evidence that today’s tight labor market may finally be translating into further base pay gains for U.S. workers into the remainder of 2018,” Sullivan said.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Joshua Petri at jpetri4@bloomberg.net

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