Image: iStockphoto
Are you finding the cost of living keeps going up, but your salary remains the same? Well, in some U.S. cities that’s just not the case. A new study conducted by a think tank in Canada revealed which American cities had the biggest wage increases between 2010 and 2011.
According to the University of Toronto’s Martin Prosperity Institute (MPI), which looked at wage data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the most lucrative salary increase occurred in the remote Alaskan city of Fairbanks. It seems workers in Fairbanks received an average annual wage increase of $2,700. The average salary in that city was $53,050.
MPI broke down the findings into two categories: the cities with the largest overall increases and the largest U.S. metros (cities with more than one million people) that saw the biggest wage increases.
Following Fairbanks on the overall list were: Bloomington, IN ($2,460 increase, average salary $38,110) and Iowa City, IA ($2,330 increase; $44,170 average).
In the largest metros, the top three includes: San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA ($2,030 increase; $69,880 average salary); Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, WA ($1,680 increase; $56,390 average); and Oakland-Fremont-Hayward, CA ($1,540 increase; $57,900 average).
The Yahoo News story also notes the report from the National Employment Law Project that we reported on, showing the growing number of low wage jobs that have come in to replace the middle-wage positions that have disappeared in the recession. According to MPI, the places with greater concentrations of college graduates — thus a more skilled workforce — and professionals in the science, tech, business and management professions are the ones who ranked higher on the lists.
