These states rank dead last in pay growth

INDIANAPOLIS (WXIN) — While inflation has been sky-high for several years, salaries haven’t been keeping up. In several U.S. states, wages have only grown 4% or 5% over the past year.

ADP released its National Employment Report, which used the salaries of nearly 10 million individual employees over the past 12 months to determine year-over-year annual pay growth across the United States.

When ranked up against the rest of the nation, workers in five states had the least success growing their paychecks.

At the very bottom is Delaware, where wages only grew about 4.6% over the past year.

Four other states are tied at the bottom of the pack. Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa and New Jersey all saw 5.2% pay growth, according to ADP. Connecticut isn’t far behind with 5.5% growth.

These are all below the national median of 6.2%.

It’s a different story in the Western U.S. Wyoming workers saw pay jump 9.1% between July 2022 and July 2023, according to the report.

The second-best wage growth was in Idaho (8.8%), followed by Montana (8.5%), Oregon (7.8%) and New Mexico (7.7%).

ADP data shows which states saw the most, least wage growth between July 2022 and July 2023. Click or tap the photo to open an interactive version of the map. (Map: ADP)

Many Americans have felt their budgets take a hit the past several years, as income hasn’t grown as fast as prices of food, gas, housing and just about everything else. But recent economic indicators have some relief in store.

Inflation reached its lowest point since early 2021 — 3% in June compared with a year earlier — thanks in part to easing prices for gasoline, airline fares, used cars and groceries.

In just the past two months, overall inflation, measured year over year, has slowed from nearly 5% in April to just 3% now. Much of that progress reflects the fading of spikes in food and energy prices that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last spring. Inflation is now significantly below its peak of 9.1% in June 2022.

When the Fed began raising its key rate a year ago, many economists expected that unemployment would have to rise significantly to curb inflation. Though inflation isn’t yet fully tamed, some economists say they think it can fall to a level near the Fed’s 2% target earlier than they had expected.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.