CultureMap Houston this morning notes that city is tops when it comes to wage growth, especially between 2010 and the end of '11. That's per a PayScale report that came out at the end of last week, which thumbed through the check stubs of workers in 20 major metros and said, hey, good news: "National wage levels trended up in 2011," continuing the forward momentum seen at the end of 2010. Ah, but then there's Dallas:
2011: Dallas-area wages finished 2011 stuck around the same level as the prior year. Earnings grew slowly at the start of 2011. Down in Q1, they bounced up in Q2, leaving Dallas salaries up 0.7 percent over the previous year. In Q3 and Q4, wages in Dallas essentially flat lined, finishing the year almost exactly where they were 12 months earlier.
2007-2010: In Dallas, Texas, where telecommunications and energy companies bring in big money, wages grew faster than they did nationally for most of 2007 and 2008, and have mostly held those gains ever since, settling to an average of about 1 percent above the national PayScale Index for 2008 through 2010.
