2023 Set to See Largest Salary Increases in Over 20 Years

According to The Conference Board US Salary Increase Budget Survey 2022–2023, US companies are budgeting 4.3 percent of their total payroll spending on salary increases in 2023.

If that figure holds, it will represent the sharpest year-over-year (nominal) increase in what businesses are allocating to pay US workers since 2001—and an acceleration of upward wage trends even as fears of a looming recession spread. Indeed, last year’s survey of compensation executives predicted 2022 salary increase budgets would average a robust 3.6 percent of payroll. Thus far, they’ve hit 4.1 percent.

In short, we’re not in the 2010s anymore. Across that decade of Great Recession and gradual recovery, salary increase budgets barely exceeded 3 percent of total payroll. By contrast, the current postpandemic US jobs boom and severe labor shortages have pushed wages and salary increase budgets higher.

Read the full report for lessons for the year ahead—one that will demand strategic planning that prioritizes what’s needed to compete in a tight talent market while also carefully managing resources amid economic uncertainty.