Almost half (49 percent) of the workers who changed jobs in 2022 got themselves an increase in wages that exceeded the inflation rate, as opposed to only 42 percent who stayed in their jobs, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Bloomberg reported.

The Bank’s Wage Growth Tracker (WGT) measure of year-over-year nominal wage growth was 6.1 percent in December 2022, down from 6.7 percent in June and July of last year, but higher than the 3.6 percent average in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The consumer price index (CPI) increased 6.5 percent from December 2021 to December 2022,” the WGT reported. “As a result, the real or inflation-adjusted WGT for December 2022 was −0.4 percent.”

Wage growth was uneven across generations. Sixty percent of those aged 16 to 24 got a wage increase above inflation in 2022, as opposed to 65 percent in 2019, while only 38 percent of those 55 and older got an inflation-beating raise last year, as opposed to 53 percent in 2019.