Most working Americans received pay raises or moved to better-paying jobs over the past year, although inflation has gnawed away at those gains, according to a recent survey by personal finance website Bankrate. The company surveyed more than 2,400 people in August and found that 48% of employed adults received raises in the past 12 months. Twenty-one percent got a better-paying job, with 39% saying they had neither received a raise nor landed a better-paying job.
At the same time, the survey found that inflation eroded the financial gains workers made. Fifty-five percent of respondents said their income has not kept up with increases in household expenses due to inflation, with just 33% saying their income has kept up or exceeded those increases.
Of the respondents that received pay raises, 36% received a performance-based increase, 31% received a cost-of-living increase, 16% got a promotion or new job responsibilities, 10% cited some other reason (such as labor contract or seniority-based), and 7% “didn’t know.” Younger workers, led by Gen Z (ages 18-25) and millennials (ages 26-41), were much more likely to have found a better-paying job compared to Gen Xers (ages 42-57) and baby boomers (ages 58-76).
