Over the years, there’s been a lot of debate about increasing the minimum wage. Each state holds their own minimum, but the reality is that most often while the wage has increased from when our parents were our age, it doesn’t keep up with inflation. With everything costing more, and our pay not increasing at the same rate, it’s leaving more and more people in poverty. While most states could use a lot of improvement in this area, there are some states that have seen a big wage increase over the past decade. Approve.com wanted to find out which states have the largest increase in pay, and some are faring far better than others. “All data was collected from the US Bureau of Labour Statistics,” approve.com explains. “We then calculated the percentage increase in average annual wages between 2010 and 2020. By using this percentage increase we estimated the average annual wages in 2030.”
Where have wages increased the most in the past ten years?
“The state with the biggest increase in average annual wages over the past decade is Washington,” approve.com shares. Wages have increased by 58.28 percent from $48,516 in 2010 to $76,791 in 2020. In second place is California which has risen 49.16 percent in the past decade, which works out to be about 14 percent higher than the national average wage. The average wage in 2010 was $53,286 and that’s increased to $79,480 in 2020. Third place goes to North Dakota which has risen by 45.47 percent, going from $38,128 in 2010 to $55,465 in 2020. Rounding out the top five, Massachusetts with a 44.95 percent increase and Oregon, which saw a 43.82 percent increase. If these wage increases continue to trend at a similar rate over the next decade, moving to Washington, California, or North Dakota might be worth looking into.
