Job changers see biggest pay gains since 2023

Summary

• Pay increases associated with changing jobs reached their highest level in more than three years in July 2026.
• The annual average job-switching premium began to rise after several years of decline.
• Workers with weekly paychecks, who tend to skew lower income, received the biggest benefits from job switching.
• Rising job mobility among lower-income workers may be supporting stronger wage growth for this group.
• Increased job mobility may be contributing to a recent narrowing in spending differences across income groups.
• Changes related to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act may be alongside job mobility in affecting spending differences.
• The data is derived from aggregated and anonymized selections of Bank of America transaction data.
• The dataset includes only active US households making a minimum of five transactions a month on consumer cards.
• Spending from corporate cards is excluded from the analysis.
• The median pay rise associated with a job-to-job change compares pay in the first three months of the new job to the same three months a year ago.
• Data regarding merchants is classified using the Merchant Categorization Code mapped to the North American Industry Classification System.
• The views expressed are solely those of Bank of America Institute and are not the product of the BofA Global Research department.