Hourly Earnings Rose Every Year
Average hourly earnings increased steadily from 2015 to 2025. The chart shows a clear upward path, with no year-to-year decline across the full period.
In 2015, average hourly earnings were $25.01 per hour. By 2025, they reached $36.32 per hour, showing a gain of $11.31 per hour over the decade.
The Highest Point Came in 2025
The highest value in the chart is 2025, when average hourly earnings reached $36.32 per hour. That marks the peak of the period shown.
This means nominal pay kept rising even after the labor market shock of 2020. Unlike jobless claims or unemployment rates, this measure did not spike and fall. It moved upward consistently.
The Lowest Point Was at the Start
The lowest value appears in 2015, at $25.01 per hour. From there, earnings increased gradually through 2019, reaching $28.01 per hour before the pandemic period.
That pre-2020 rise shows that hourly pay was already trending upward before the major labor market disruption. The increase became more noticeable after 2020.
Growth Became Stronger After 2020
From 2020 to 2025, average hourly earnings rose from $29.32 per hour to $36.32 per hour. That is a larger increase than the one seen from 2015 to 2020.
The biggest jumps happened after 2021. Earnings climbed to $32.25 per hour in 2022, then continued rising to $33.93 per hour in 2023 and $35.02 per hour in 2024.
The Pattern Shows Persistent Wage Growth
The chart’s main pattern is steady nominal wage growth. Hourly earnings increased before, during, and after the pandemic period.
This does not automatically mean workers had more buying power, because inflation affects real wages. But in nominal terms, the pay rate shown in the chart kept moving higher each year.
What This Means for People
For workers, the chart suggests that hourly pay levels continued to improve over the decade. The 2025 value of $36.32 per hour is well above the 2015 level of $25.01 per hour.
For employers, the takeaway is that labor costs have continued rising. Even as unemployment and jobless claims normalized after 2020, hourly earnings kept climbing, which can affect hiring, budgeting, and wage negotiations.
Dataset
Data Sources
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED). (2026). Average Hourly Earnings of All Employees, Total Private [CES0500000003]. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Situation. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES0500000003
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2026). Employment Situation, Table B-3. Average hourly and weekly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm payrolls by industry sector, seasonally adjusted. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t19.htm
