It's the yearly review time again. What is the standard for a
pay-raise? Some say that the standard raise in salary is 3%, others
say it is 5%. Some say there is no standard or that there is a law
requiring a minimum "cost of living" increase. Who's right?

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Request for Question Clarification by willie-ga on 23 Oct 2002 10:24 PDT

Hi minc

Can I ask what you are looking for?

Do you want the US average salary increase figure?
Do you want the pros and cons of using methods such as cost of
living/performance related pay/industry averages etc?

There is no "right" answer to your question, just differences between
companies and their different ways of calculating pay rises. What
would satisy you as an answer?

Willie-ga

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Clarification of Question by minc-ga on 30 Oct 2002 17:09 PST

Well, I was referring, I geuss, to what "techtor-ga" mentioned below.
What the custom is ... or perhaps some stats on what's "usual." Do
most people get 3%? Do most people get more? There probably is no easy
answer to this question - so I guess just a flood of numbers and stats
is the best resource :) - And thanks zyphre-ga for the links!

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Request for Question Clarification by techtor-ga on 02 Nov 2002 05:20 PST

Hello minc, 
I have found a resource, a PDF report by CATIA Solutions magazine,
where they have a yearly salary survey. Though it is mainly an IT
magazine, the report includes salary figures for other occupations in
many areas, including average increase rates overall. I figured from
your last clarification that just statistical figures would satisfy
you. Would they? If so, I'm hoping I can post my find as an answer. Do
tell me about it. Thanks.

techtor

Hello there minc,
Since there are a flood of resources already mentioned here, so I hope
you don’t mind my collecting them and posting them as an answer (I
don't wanna miss the $20 :) ), since you defined that you were looking
for the salary average raise rate. There are no laws requiring raises,
so I presume raises are just pushed by the minimum wage laws.

Your guess is correct, 3-5% is the most common raise rate according to
this magazine:
CATIA Solutions, The CATIA Software user magazine
http://www.catiasolutions.com/salary.htm
This survey gives national figures. There are charts for other raise
rates, such as 10% and 15% (wouldn't you want to have a bigger raise
than that?).

CATIA's 2002 Salary Survey is posted here, but as an Adobe Acrobat
PDF:
http://www.catiasolutions.com/02CATIA_SalarySurveyResults.pdf

The Bureau of Labor Statistics that zyphre-ga mentioned has that same
findings as above. Here is their main salary statistics page for the
national level (thanks, zyphre):
US Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics - National
Compensation Survey
http://www.bls.gov/ncs/home.htm

Here’s a company that claims to be the best  salary survey site
available, but most of their documentation is for pay:
CompGeo Online Associate Geographic Salary Database research
http://www.compgeo.net

Here’s another site that came up in my searches:
Wageweb: Salary Survey Data
http://www.wageweb.com/

On the side, I’d like to include various articles on salary increase
issues.

Legislative Action Focus Reports - Focus on teacher salaries for
1998-1999
http://www.sreb.org/scripts/Focus/focus1.asp?Code=10

Detailed Expected Average Raises Versus Experience on Thomas Jay
Chester’s website (Chester is a scientist at IPAC at California
Institute of Technology)
http://sd.znet.com/~schester/calculations/salaries/detailed_expected_average_raises.html

Expected Average Raises Versus Experience on Thomas jay Chester’s
website
http://sd.znet.com/~schester/calculations/salaries/expected_average_raises.html

Some salary issues in an educational institution (now I know how
poorly paid school employees are)
Institutional Research's faculty salary report shows highs, lows
http://www.pitt.edu/utimes/issues/27/21695/11.html

Medical Devicelink
Salary Increases Continue despite Business Uncertainties
Gregg Nighswonger
Dec. 2001
http://www.devicelink.com/mddi/archive/01/12/002.html

Salary disparities raise questions by Sara Bader, June 6, 2002, The
Spectator Online
http://www.seattleu.edu/student/spec/news/article.asp?key=554

salary increase (statistics/law)
salary raise (statistics/law)
average salary raise rate
average salary survey

I sure hope this gives you the information you need. 

Techtor

Hello Minc,
Based on what I've seen on the net so far, it doesn't seem that there
are any laws requiring annual salary raises for non-government
employees. It's more like a custom based on ethics. I think annual
raises are done based on merit and so that the salary does not fall
below the minimum wage requirement. They seem really to be the
prerogative of the company and not of law. So far what I've been
seeing on the Net are movements to raise the minimum wage requirement.
Is it $5.15 currently, by the way? Sorry, I've been out of touch with
the rules for a while (since I live in the Philippines). :)

Techtor

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is a part of the US Dept of
Labor publishes a lot of information.  They publish the consumer price
index, which measure inflation, so you could increase wages that much
or you can use the Employment Cost Index also measures the change in
wages from the last 3 months or last year.
As the above person pointed out, there is no legal requirement to
adjust wages and a lot of the decision is based on what your company
can afford and the labor market conditions that your company faces.

http://www.bls.gov
http://www.bls.gov/cpi
http://www.bls.gov/ect