As measured by the Atlanta Fed's Wage Growth Tracker, the typical wage increase of a U.S. worker averaged 3.5 percent in 2016. This is up from 3.1 percent in 2015 and almost twice the low of 1.8 percent recorded in 2010. As noted in previous macroblog posts, the Wage Growth Tracker correlates tightly to the unemployment rate. As median wage growth has risen, the unemployment rate declined from an average of 9.6 percent in 2010, to 5.3 percent in 2015, and to 4.8 percent in 2016.
What does this correlation suggest about the Wage Growth Tracker in 2017? Let's start with a forecast of unemployment. Based on the latest Summary of Economic Projections
, the central view of Federal Open Market Committee participants is that the unemployment rate will end this year at around 4.5 percent, about 30 basis points below the median participant's estimate of the unemployment rate that is sustainable over the longer run.
With a modest further decline in the unemployment rate, other things equal, we might then also expect to see a modest uptick in the Wage Growth Tracker in 2017. But I think the emphasis here should be on the word modest. Speaking for myself, sustained Wage Growth Tracker readings much above 4 percent in 2017 would begin to worry me, especially without a compensating pickup in the growth of labor productivity, which has been stuck in the 0 to 1 percent range in recent years. Significantly higher wage growth—reflecting a tightening labor market more than larger gains in worker productivity—could make the inflation outlook a bit less sanguine than we currently think. (This macroblog post discussed the connection among productivity growth, wage growth, and inflation.)
Thus far, many firms appear to have been able to keep their labor costs relatively low by replacing or expanding staff with lower-paid workers. (Our colleagues at the San Francisco Fed have written about how changes in the composition of workers can mute changes in total labor costs.) However, it's not clear how long that approach can be sustained. Indeed, it's noteworthy that average wage costs appear to have accelerated recently. For instance, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data 
indicate that average hourly earnings in the private sector increased over the year by 2.9 percent in December—the fastest pace since 2009.
We haven't been hearing reports from firms where the typical worker's wage increase in 2017 is expected to be above 4 percent. However, we did get readings for the Wage Growth Tracker pretty close to 4 percent in October and November of last year. As the following chart shows, a sharp increase in women's median wage growth (hitting 4.3 percent in October 2016) drove the overall increase. In contrast, the median wage increase for men was 3.5 percent.
The jump in the relative wage growth of women came as a bit of a surprise. Female wage growth had been generally running below that of men since 2010, and analysis by my colleague Ellie Terry showed that gender-specific factors that are unlikely to change very rapidly explain a fair amount of that lag. Therefore, we suspected that the divergence in wage growth might not be sustainable—a suspicion that proved to be true. Median wage growth for women slowed to 3.5 percent in December, the same growth rate men saw.
Readers who can't get enough Wage Growth Tracker data will be delighted to note that in 2017 we plan on making further enhancements to the tool. These enhancements will include finer cuts by age, education, industry, and hours worked, as well as new cuts by occupation, race, and location. You can stay informed on all Wage Growth Tracker updates by subscribing to our RSS feed 
or email updates 
.
By John Robertson, a senior policy adviser in the Atlanta Fed's research department