"For decades, wages have been rising," says Issi Romem, a fellow at the ADP Research Institute. And as of the last few years, amid the pandemic, "they've been rising more."

Romem is part of a team of ADP researchers who recently surveyed the 53 biggest metro areas in the U.S. (those with more than 1 million residents) to see where salaried workers had seen the biggest gains between 2019 and 2021. Among its findings, The Geography of Recent U.S. Wage Growth found salaried workers at every end of the spectrum ― high, median and low ― saw a rise.