💰Wage Growth by Sector

Overall wage growth: 12%, 2010 to 2019

Growing-wage sectors, 2010-2019

• Other Services: 21% 

• Public Administration: 20%

• Professional and Business Services: 20% 

• Financial Activities: 19% 

• Information: 17% 

• Leisure and Hospitality: 13% 

• Construction: 12% 

• Trade, Transportation, and Utilities: 11% 

Declining-wage sectors, 2010-2019:  

• Manufacturing: -1%

• Education and Health Services: -2% 

The benefits of strong job growth are best realized when all who want to work can do so and are compensated fairly. Broadly speaking, average real wages have increased for most workers in Greater Boston over the last decade. Several industries that had experienced stagnant or declining wages in the previous decade (2001-2010), including Leisure and Hospitality, Other Services, and Trade, Transportation and Utilities saw a rebound of real wages from 2010 to 2019. Despite these gains, the trend of bimodal wage growth that began in decades prior persisted.

Wages rebounded 11 to 13 percent in low-wage industries (Trade, Transportation and Utilities, Leisure and Hospitality, Construction), but they grew faster in high-wage sectors (19 percent in Financial Activities and 20 percent in Professional and Business Services), which means that existing wage disparities and income inequality in the region has continued, if not worsened. The Education and Health sector—the largest (and still growing) sector in the region—provided solidly middle-class-level wages (on average) to workers for the last two decades. However, since 2010, average real wages in the industry declined by two percent, presenting more signs of a declining middle class that will be hard to rebuild without significant reform.

While wages aren’t everything (benefits, predictability, and safety matter, as well) raising wages across jobs in lower-paying industries is essential to closing income disparities. Some of the gains in lower-wage sectors such as Leisure and Hospitality is likely a result of legislation in 2015 and again in 2019 to incrementally raise the Massachusetts minimum wage from $8 in 2015 to $15 in 2023. Further legislation such as this is needed to provide the support lower-wage workers need to keep up with the rapidly rising wages of higher-wage industries. Equally important are efforts to balance the relative burden of wage disparity through taxation and benefit restructuring.

MetroCommon Goals: Economic Security Goals G.1 and G.4

MetroCommon Recommendations: Enable Wealth Creation and Intergenerational Wealth Transfer, Action 3.1, 3.2