After years of exorbitant salary demands from rank-and-file workers, Fairfield County business owners appear to be taking back control of compensation costs.
The median Fairfield County household had $80,000 in income last year, up from $77,000 in 2006 according to fresh estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau. The bureau”™s model allows for a $2,000 swing up or down to account for margins of error in making the estimate.
Loudon County, Va., led the nation with $107,000 in median income, knocking neighboring Fairfax County out of the top slot.
The past several years, Fairfield County has led the nation in average income thanks to the massive salaries, bonuses and stock earned by executives and financiers who live and work here. Nearly 53,400 households in Fairfield County made at least $200,000 last year, 5,300 more than in 2006.
While those outsized paychecks are captured in an average, they do not move significantly the median measuring stick used by the Census Bureau, which takes a snapshot of the single household at the midrange point of Fairfield County earners.
The average figure provides a better view of overall spending power in the county that retailers can tap into, including income earned by executives; the median figure, however, affords a more accurate glimpse of the purchasing power of the middle class.
Salaries have inflated rapidly this decade, after years of limited housing construction in turn forced up home prices and rents, particularly in lower Fairfield County along commuter routes into New York City.
This summer, the Connecticut General Assembly overrode a Gov. M. Jodi Rell veto of a hike in the state”™s minimum wage, which is slated to increase from its current level of $7.65 an hour to $8 in January and $8.25 in January 2010.
Payroll costs trail only health-insurance premiums as the largest deterrent to running a company here, according to surveys by the Connecticut Business and Industry Association.
Employees are feeling the pinch at all ends of the scale. Earlier this summer, New YorkFairfield County with more than 4,000 workers in Stamford. regulators estimated Wall Street would award at least $10 billion less in bonuses this year; late last month, UBS AG announced sharp cutbacks in its own bonus program. The Swiss bank is one of the largest employers in
Hewitt Associates, an Illinois-based human-resources firm with a Norwalk office, predicted last week that variable pay like bonuses will fall nationally this year for the first time since 2003, although the workers can plan on receiving a 3.7 percent raise on average in their base pay. Hewitt Associates expects accountants and business consultants to be able to command the best increases.
Despite the sluggish economy, just 3 percent of businesses surveyed reported they either have frozen compensation packages or have plans to do so next year.
