(TruthAndLiberty.com) – On Monday the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a survey that showed that American workers only consider accepting jobs that have wages close to $80,000.
The latest survey of consumer expectations has shown that the average “reservation wage,” in other words the minimum salary that workers are willing to accept when changing jobs is $78,645 as of the second quarter of 2023. This marks a close to 8 percent increase when compared to last year’s average reservation wage which was around $72,873. The new reservation wage is a record high.
Those over the age of 45 had the highest year-over-year increase as workers with a college degree expect to receive a $98,600 salary while being unwilling to take any salary that is under $63,300.
The tight labor market has also provided workers with the opportunity to often change their jobs as they chase better positions, working conditions, hours, and wages. This phenomenon has largely been dubbed the “Great Resignation.”
In June the Labor Department reported that there were 9.6 million job openings, which amounts to approximately 1.6 posted jobs for every single unemployed worker. Switching jobs has proved to be much more beneficial for American workers who can receive a 7 percent annual pay raise through the switch. Loyalty to a company by comparison only leads to a 5.5 percent pay raise.
High inflation has in part been driven by the rapid wage growth in the last two years. The Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has warned about the risks of having very high pay increases, noting that wage inflation needs to return to sustainable levels that are consistent with the desired inflation rate of 2 percent.
Copyright 2023, TruthAndLiberty.com
