Employers better pay up: Americans have sky-high salary expectations

CNN’s PM Plug-In is a weekday newsletter to catch you up on important news you may have missed during your busy day. Make sure to subscribe to stay in the know.

Today we’re looking at a new survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that shows Americans’ wage expectations have hit record highs. And men demand a lot more than women.

THE DEMANDS

• Job seekers’ average “reservation wage” – the lowest pay they’d be willing to take for a new job – climbed to $78,645 in July, up nearly 8% from last year, the New York Fed’s survey finds.
• That tracks with demands we’ve seen from unions all summer, with some on strike (Hollywood writers and actors, plus Los Angeles hotel and city workers) and some threatening (auto worker contracts end in September; we find out today whether rank-and-file Teamsters at UPS have ratified a tentative deal).

WHY

• Wages haven’t kept up with the inflation surge. “Part of the reason that workers are expecting higher wages is because prices have risen 17.5% since the pandemic,” says Julia Pollak, chief economist for online job marketplace ZipRecruiter.
• Wages have grown, but not to pre-pandemic levels and certainly not enough to counteract inflation. May was the first month in more than two years when US workers’ real hourly earnings (those adjusted for inflation) grew on an annual basis.

THE GENDER GAP

• Reservation wages rose for workers across the board, but some groups’ demands are significantly higher than others. Men’s wage floor is $91,048.
• On the flip side, women’s reservation wages also set a record, but at a much lower $66,068. That’s about $25,000 below men!
• Women expect even less than the actual earnings gap. “The fact that women are earning 84% of what men earn but expect only 73% suggests that perhaps the media narrative [of the gender pay gap] makes women expect even less and that perhaps we are not preparing young women for the workforce adequately,” Pollak notes.
• One economist looked at the “ask gap” with data from Hired.com to determine that women on average asked for 3.3% less than men for a full-time engineering job, with that gap growing to 6% for women with more experience. But interestingly, the gap closed when the site was more transparent about salary, providing a median wage. Pollack theorizes that, “especially in male-dominated industries, women may just not know what the going rate is and underestimate.”

Has your bottom price for taking a job changed in the past year? Why? What do you think of the research findings on the gender gap? Share your stories in the comments.

Here are some other stories we're following today:

Co-defendants in Georgia's 2020 election subversion case are starting to turn themselves in to the Fulton County jail. The first was an Atlanta bail bondsman, quickly followed by ex-Trump attorney John Eastman. Former President Donald Trump plans to turn himself in on Thursday. He has agreed to a $200,000 bond.?

While the West cleans up from Hilary, the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season to make landfall in the US is making its way through Texas. Tropical Storm Harold came ashore on Padre Island this morning, with sustained winds of 50 mph and heavy rain.?

A morning commute to school turned into a dramatic, daylong rescue 900 feet in the air. A cable car in Pakistan carrying six children and two adults had one of its cables snap, leaving the passengers dangling in the air for at least 10 hours. All eight were rescued -- some by the Pakistani military and others by local zipliners. Watch the helicopter rescues.

A new plan aimed at reducing monthly student loan payments is now live. The Biden administration launched the program, called SAVE, today and is encouraging borrowers to apply ASAP so the changes can hit their accounts before the first payment is due in October. A beta website was launched last month after the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan earlier this summer.?

After five months of declines, US home prices are back up. The median existing home price was more than $406,000 last month, up 1.9% from a year ago. Prices were pushed up by the low inventory of homes on the market. One region spared from the increase in prices was the West.?

Dick's Sporting Goods blames retail theft for plunging second-quarter profits that came in 23% down, despite sales that rose 3.6% over the same period. Dick's isn't the first retailer to say they are struggling to contain an escalation in store crimes – from petty shoplifting to organized sprees of large-scale theft that clear entire shelves – but is among the first to blame its lackluster quarterly financial report primarily on theft. Why is retail theft soaring? Read what experts say.

?? Stay plugged in

We're excited to bring you this PM newsletter each week, Monday through Thursday, from CNN’s Ticker Team right here on LinkedIn. Don't miss the next edition. Subscribe now — and share with colleagues, friends and family.

What did you think of today’s newsletter? Drop a comment below or send thoughts and feedback to [email protected].