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The US Cities Where Workers’ Wages Are Growing the Fastest
Construction workers are seeing the biggest pay raises. Credit: Me 3645 Studio/Getty Images KEY TAKEAWAYS Median pay raises outpaced inflation year over year in all 56 metros ADP Research tracks. Workers in Buffalo, New York, had the highest growth in total wages, with a 6.4% year-over-year increase. Construction workers have consistently received higher pay raises than workers in any other industry this year. American paychecks have outpaced rising prices this past year in every city ADP tracks. Workers in Buffalo, New York, had the largest pay raises among the 56 cities, according to ADP Research, the payroll processing company’s analytics arm. In August, wages for Buffalo workers grew by 6.4% from the same time last year. ADP’s figures are for gross pay, which includes overtime, bonuses, commissions, and tips. Why This Matters Workers’ location and industry affect how quickly their pay grows. Comparing those gains with inflation helps show where their purchasing power is rising. Nationally, workers had a median 4.7% raise in gross pay, according to ADP’s analysis of private-sector employment, ahead of July’s 3.4% inflation rate, the latest available. Base pay grew 3.2%, slightly less than inflation. ADP’s figure tracks median raises for those with continued employment over the previous 12 months, while Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data averages hourly earnings across the whole workforce. According to the BLS, average hourly earnings nationwide grew 3.2% year over year in July. At about 0.2 percentage points below inflation for the same month, the data indicates inflation is squeezing many consumers’ spending power . According to ADP, workers in Louisville, Kentucky, had the lowest median raise in gross pay among the metros, 3.9% year over year. Construction Workers Are Getting the Biggest Raises Industry matters as much as geography. Workers in construction have seen the biggest year-over-year pay raises in every month of 2026, according to ADP Research. Through August, their wages grew by a median of 5.6%. The AI data center buildout has powered much of the wage growth, along with a shrinking pool of workers. Aside from the catch-all “other services” sector, the information sector had the lowest raises in gross pay year over year. The information sector includes TV, film, music recording, publishing, and data processing companies. The information sector ranked among the top three for wage growth from November 2021 to January 2023. By December 2022, it had the third-highest pay raises; by January 2023, the sector had fallen to eighth. The slide began around the November 2022 release of ChatGPT . The introduction of AI chatbots in the workforce has coincided with smaller pay raises for workers in the tech and information sectors. A 2025 study by Microsoft found that jobs like translators, writers, broadcast announcers, and news analysts are among the positions most exposed to disruption from AI.
