Wage gains seen picking up for U.S. workers at small companies

NEW YORK – Wage growth is poised to accelerate at small U.S. companies this month after a slowdown in October.

A net 17 percent of managers last month said they plan to increase pay, up 1 percentage point from September and matching the highest level since 2007, according to the seasonally adjusted results of 1,411 responses in a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business. The proportion of business owners who said they had recently raised pay fell to 21 percent from 23 percent in the previous month, the survey showed.

The group’s index of small-business optimism held at 96.1 in September, below the 42-year average of 98.

The survey by the NFIB, a lobbying group that says it has 325,000 small and independent business owners as members. Since the start of 2013, the percentage of smaller companies preparing to increase pay has been as low as 6 percent and as high as 17 percent.

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Average hourly earnings reported on Nov. 6 by the Labor Department advanced 2.5 percent in October from a year earlier, the biggest gain since July 2009.

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