Employment Cost Index: how fast US wages and salaries are growing

If you want a solid number to hold your raise up against, the Employment Cost Index (ECI) is the one to use. This guide shows you what the latest release says about how fast US wages and salaries are growing, how to find the figure for your own job group or industry, and how to bring it into a review without sounding like you're reading from a spreadsheet.

One timing note before the numbers. The newest ECI on the BLS site today covers the second quarter of 2026 (the 12 months ending June 2026), published July 31, 2026. The third-quarter figures are scheduled for October 30, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. ET, so check the release page before you quote anything after that date.

What the Employment Cost Index measures, and why it beats average pay

The ECI is a quarterly measure from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) that tracks how much employers' hourly labor costs change over time. It covers wages and salaries plus benefits, and it reports each piece separately, so you can look at pay on its own.

The feature that makes economists trust it: BLS prices a fixed "basket" of jobs. The handbook describes this as a pure cost change, "free from the effects of workers moving between occupations and industries." In plain words, the ECI asks, "What does it cost to pay for the same set of jobs as last year?" rather than "What is the average worker earning?"

That difference matters more than it sounds. Here is why an average can mislead you.

• Average pay moves when the mix of workers changes. If lots of lower-paid workers lose their jobs, the average of everyone still employed jumps, even if nobody got a raise. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas showed this happened to average hourly earnings in spring 2020, calling it a "composition effect."
• The ECI is built to ignore that shift. Because it keeps the job mix fixed, a rise in the ECI reflects pay for comparable jobs going up, not a change in who is working.

It is not the monthly jobs report number

You've probably seen "average hourly earnings" in headlines on jobs-report Fridays. That figure comes from a different survey, the Current Employment Statistics payroll survey, and it divides total pay by total hours. It's useful for tracking the jobs market, but it's not built to be a pay benchmark.

BLS itself makes this point. Its payroll survey FAQ says it recommends against using those earnings series in contract escalation clauses and points people to the ECI instead, because the ECI is free of shifts among industries and occupations. If BLS steers contract writers to the ECI, it's a reasonable benchmark for your raise too.

What counts as "wages and salaries" here

The ECI's definitions are narrower than your W-2, which affects how you compare. According to the BLS handbook, wages and salaries include base pay plus incentive pay such as commissions, production bonuses and piece rates. Overtime premiums, shift differentials, and year-end or profit-sharing bonuses are counted as benefits, not wages. Tips paid by customers are excluded entirely.

So if your total pay rose mainly because of a bigger year-end bonus or more overtime, compare your base pay change to the ECI wage figure, not your total.

The ECI also has gaps in coverage. It includes private industry and state and local government, but not federal employees, the self-employed, private household workers or farm workers. If you're a federal worker, the ECI is context, not a direct benchmark.

The latest 12-month change in wages and salaries

A 12-month percent change compares the cost of the same jobs in one month with the same month a year earlier. Put simply, it answers: how much more does it cost to pay for these exact jobs than it did a year ago? Because you're comparing June with June, seasonal swings such as holiday hiring wash out.

For the 12 months ending June 2026, BLS reported:

Source: BLS Employment Cost Index news release, June 2026 data.

For the headline wage series, 3.2% is your starting benchmark. You can check the math yourself: the civilian wages and salaries index (December 2005 = 100) was 171.362 in June 2025 and 176.821 in June 2026. Divide the new number by the old one and subtract one, and you get about 3.2%.

Is pay growth speeding up or slowing down

Slowing, gently. Civilian wage growth over 12 months was 3.6% in June 2025 and 3.4% in March 2026 before easing to 3.2% in June 2026. Private industry followed the same path: 3.5%, then 3.4%, then 3.1%.

The release also gives a 3-month figure, which is seasonally adjusted and shows the pace in the latest quarter alone. Civilian wages and salaries rose 0.9% in the three months ending June 2026. Don't compare a 3-month figure with your annual raise; that's like comparing one quarter's sales to a full year's.

Benefits are rising faster than pay

Employer benefit costs rose 3.8% over the year for civilian workers, ahead of wages. In private industry, health benefit costs rose 6.0%. That's worth knowing for a review: your employer may say total compensation costs went up a lot, which can be true even when your paycheck grew less. It's fair to ask how much of a "total rewards" increase reached your base pay.

Private industry versus state and local government

Public-sector wages grew a little faster than private wages over the year to June 2026: 3.4% for state and local government workers versus 3.1% in private industry. A year earlier the gap was wider, with state and local wages up 3.9% and private wages up 3.5% over the 12 months ending June 2025.

Within state and local government, BLS publishes a handful of groups (Table 11 of the release):

If you work for a city, county, state agency or public school district, these are your closer comparisons. Public pay often moves on fixed schedules set by budgets or union contracts, so the timing of your raise may not line up with the quarter.

Wage growth by occupation group and industry

This is where the ECI earns its keep. The headline number is an average across very different jobs, and your group may be well above or below it.

By occupation group (private industry)

Two things to notice. Skilled trades and repair work led the pack. Sales trailed badly, but much of that is commissions: BLS also publishes the sales figure excluding incentive-paid jobs, and that came in at 2.3%. If you're on base salary in a sales role, the 2.3% figure is the fairer comparison.

By industry (private industry)

Professional, scientific and technical services, which includes many tech, consulting, legal and engineering firms, grew noticeably slower than the overall private figure.

Union status and region

BLS also splits private wages by union status and Census region. Union workers' wages rose 3.6% over the year to June 2026, versus 3.1% for nonunion workers. By region, the South led at 3.5%, followed by the West at 3.2%, the Midwest at 2.9% and the Northeast at 2.7%. These are broad regions, not cities, so treat them as background rather than a local benchmark.

How to find your own line

1. Open the latest BLS Employment Cost Index news release.
2. Skip to Table 9 (private industry wages) or Table 11 (state and local government wages). Both are not seasonally adjusted, which is what you want for 12-month changes.
3. Find the occupation group that matches what you do, then the industry you work in.
4. Read the last column, the 12-month change ending in the latest month.
5. Note both numbers. If they differ, you now have a range to work with.

Example: a hypothetical maintenance technician at a private hospital would find installation, maintenance and repair at 3.7%, private hospitals at 3.2%, and health care and social assistance at 3.6%. A fair benchmark range is roughly the hospital figure to the occupation figure.

Keep in mind that occupation groups are broad. "Professional and related" lumps nurses, engineers, teachers and accountants together. For what your specific job pays in dollars, pair the ECI with occupation pay data, and see our salaries by role coverage.

How the ECI compares with inflation

A raise only feels like a raise if it beats rising prices. The ECI helps here because BLS publishes a constant-dollar version, which adjusts the wage figures for changes in consumer prices.

For the 12 months ending June 2026, inflation-adjusted wages and salaries fell 0.4% in private industry and 0.1% in state and local government. In other words, typical pay growth for comparable jobs ran slightly behind prices. That's a shift from March 2026, when inflation-adjusted private wages were up 0.1% over the year.

Inflation has picked up since then. The Consumer Price Index for September 2026, released October 14, showed prices up 3.7% over 12 months, compared with 3.4% for the 12 months ending August. Energy drove much of that, with the energy index up 20.4% over the year. Prices excluding food and energy rose 2.6%.

What this means for you: a raise that merely matches the 3.2% ECI wage figure may still leave you slightly behind on purchasing power, depending on what you spend money on. For a deeper walk-through of real versus nominal raises, see our pay trends coverage.

Using the ECI as a benchmark in a raise conversation

The ECI tells you how pay for comparable jobs is moving in the market. It does not tell you what you personally deserve, and it doesn't account for a promotion, a change in duties, or a company that's struggling. Use it as one anchor, alongside your performance and what similar roles pay.

Build your benchmark in four steps

• Pick your lines. Headline wages (3.2%), your sector (private 3.1% or state and local 3.4%), your occupation group and your industry, all for the 12 months ending June 2026, or newer if the next release is out.
• Set a range. Your low end is the lower of your occupation and industry figures; your high end is the higher one.
• Check inflation. Note the latest 12-month CPI figure. If your proposed raise is below it, your pay is shrinking in real terms.
• Compare like with like. Measure your base pay change, not bonus or overtime, since the ECI counts those as benefits.

A short script for your review

Here is a version you can adapt. Fill in your own figures.

"Before we talk numbers, I pulled the government's Employment Cost Index, which tracks pay for the same jobs over time. For the year through June, wages in [my occupation group] rose [X] percent and in [my industry] rose [Y] percent. Consumer prices were up [Z] percent over the latest 12 months. Over the past year I [two concrete results]. Given that, I'd like my increase to land at or above the market rate, around [your number]. Can we get there?"

If your manager says the budget is fixed, you can follow up with: "I understand. If the base increase can't reach the market rate this cycle, can we agree on a date to revisit it, or look at a title or responsibility change that would support a bigger adjustment?"

For more scripts and how to handle pushback, see our negotiation coverage.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Quoting the 3-month number as if it were annual. It's one quarter's movement.
• Using average hourly earnings from the jobs report. It shifts with the worker mix and isn't the benchmark BLS recommends for escalation.
• Treating the figure as a floor you're owed. It's an average. Your performance and your employer's situation matter just as much.
• Mixing time periods. Compare 12-month ECI figures with a 12-month CPI figure and a full-year raise.
• Over-reading small differences. A tiny gap between two industries may just be survey noise. BLS publishes standard errors if you want to check how precise a series is.

When the next release comes out

BLS publishes the ECI four times a year, about a month after each quarter ends. Each survey snapshot is taken in the last month of the quarter, using whichever pay period covers the 12th of that month.

Source: BLS schedule of releases for the Employment Cost Index.

Two changes are coming that you should know about. Starting with the June 2026 data, BLS began publishing "relative importance" estimates, which show how much weight each piece carries in the index. And starting with the December 2026 data, due January 29, 2027, the ECI will switch to updated employment weights and stop counting workers' compensation costs. That could nudge some comparisons with older periods, so check the notes on the release when you pull numbers early next year.

What to do next

• Bookmark the release page and check it on October 30, 2026. The September 2026 figures will replace the June numbers in this guide.
• Write down your three numbers: headline wages, your occupation group and your industry, all for the same 12-month period.
• Grab the latest CPI 12-month figure so you can show whether a proposed raise keeps up with prices.
• Pair the ECI with dollar data for your job and city, so you can talk about both the rate of change and where your pay sits.
• Practice the script out loud once or twice before the meeting. Numbers land better when you say them calmly.

The ECI won't guarantee you a raise. It does give you a credible, neutral reference point, and that changes the conversation from "I'd like more" to "here's what the market is doing."