Northeast employers paid its workers the nation’s highest wages and salaries of $28 per hour in March, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor.
The bureau reported that private employers in the Northeast paid, on average, $41.98 per hour, including $13.21 per hour in benefits, to workers in New England and others in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.
New England employers paid workers $3.65 per hour for insurance, including life, health, short- and long-term disability insurance, and $3.27 per hour for paid leave in March. Retirement and savings tacked on another $1.90 per hour for employers in the month, officials said.
Across the U.S. in March, employers paid wages and salaries of $23.76 per hour, and $34.17 per hour including total compensation.
Workers in the southern portion of the country received the lowest total compensation of $30.68 per hour, with wages and salaries of $21.81 per hour. That narrowly surpassed compensation in the Midwest, where employers earned the lowest wages and salaries of $21.48 per hour and total compensation of $31.03.
Despite New England’s nation-leading salaries, Connecticut’s General Assembly this legislative session passed on the opportunity to vote on a bill that would have raised the minimum wage from $10.10 to $15 by 2021.
The legislation called for the minimum wage to increase from $10.10 to $12 on Jan. 1, 2019; from $12 to $13.50 on Jan. 1, 2020; and from $13.50 to $15 on Jan. 1, 2021.
