The typical U.S. worker's pay is about the same as it was in late 2019, after accounting for inflation.
But workers in some states have seen sharply higher earnings, especially in scenic areas that are appealing to remote workers and have labor shortages. In Montana, for example, average pay has increased 28.3% since before the pandemic, easily beating the roughly 19% national inflation rate during that time.
That translates into an average raise of $260 a week to $1,178. No other state saw such a large gain, according to a new Stateline analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The numbers are from 2023, the latest available.
Montana has drawn remote workers with the beauty of its parks and mountains and has lured blue-collar employees with pay that's competitive with more expensive areas. Other picturesque places also have drawn remote workers. Average pay increased significantly in these states, though some of them had relatively low wages to begin with.
They include New Hampshire (wages up 28%), Florida (27.3%), Washington (27.2%), Maine (26.
7%), Vermont (26.5%), Utah (25.7%), Arizona (24.
8%) and West Virginia (24.6%). Pay increased slightly less than the 19.
3% inflation rate in North Dakota (16.8%), Wyoming (17.5%), Connecticut and Michigan (18.
1%), New Jersey (18.2%), Maryland and Rhode Island (18.6%), Minnesota and New York (18.
9%), and Oklahoma and Pennsylvania (19%). Nationally, inflation-adjusted earnings increased steeply early in the pandemic as low-wa.