U.S. Salary Increase Budgets for 2011

With a median increase of 2.5 percent in 2010, salary increase budgets remain historically low but projections for 2011 show a modest increase to 3.0 percent—an indication that the economic recovery has not yet picked up enough strength to significantly raise salary budgets. Pay for performance rather than general increase remains a dominate trend. The data analysis in this report is based on the responses of 313 organizations and includes four employee groups: non-exempt hourly (non-union), non-exempt salaried, exempt, and executive.