Philadelphia experienced 2.8% growth in wages over the last year, compared to the U.S. overall, which saw just 2.2% pay growth in during the period between July 2017 and July 2018.
Glassdoor’s Local Pay Reports looked into wage growth in 10 major cities across the country using anonymous salary data from millions of employees in 84 professions and across 15 industries.
Immediately behind Pennsylvania’s largest city came San Francisco with 2.7% growth, then New York City and Los Angeles, which were equal at 2.6%.
“[Increased] cost of living is certainly one factor that’s driving up wages for workers in these cities,” Glassdoor said in an email to Bloomberg.
Reasons for the success also include more senior-level hiring in the health care industry, according to Glassdoor, as quoted by Biz Journals.
At the bottom of the pile with the lowest annual wage-growth increases were Washington, D.C. (1.7%), Atlanta (1.9%), and Boston (2%).
The average yearly salary in Philadelphia came out at $55,723. Leading the pack in this area was San Francisco, where the average pay sits comfortably at $69,404 per year, and a family earning just under $120,000 a year is considered “low income.”