A salary increase is on the way for Lauderdale County employees.
The Lauderdale County Commission passed a budget this week that includes a $2,000 pay increase for its employees.
Lauderdale County Commission Chairman Danny Pettus was pleased to share that his nearly 350 county employees will receive a salary bump. He said this is an attempt to make sure Lauderdale County does everything it can to retain workers.
"We decided to just go with a dollar amount. It does make the person on higher salary not get quite as much, but you’re still getting $2,000," said Pettus.
That increase of $2,000 is to make sure employees feel taken care of. For nearly two years, inflation numbers have continued to soar, putting even some of the hardest workers in a financial bind.
"You are seeing nominal wages increase to try and offset the inflation rate. But actually what you’ve seen over the last year and a half or so has been a decline in real wages across workers of different income levels, basically every month for the last 18 months," said Jason Imbrogno, an associate professor of economics at the University of North Alabama.
Imbrogno said, because the spike has gotten so high, salary increases like the one that Lauderdale County employees will receive have become increasingly necessary.
"My wage has to go up because I'm losing buying power I used to have. If I used to make the same amount of money but everything I buy costs more, I need to get a wage bump just so I can be the same as I was," said Imbrogno.
Which begs the question, in the current economic climate, is $2,000 enough?
"These Lauderdale County employees, like you said, might be getting a $2,000 raise. It’s probably not even keeping up with the extra that they are having to pay for groceries and gas, cars and vacations and whatnot," said Imbrogno.
Whether it's enough to sustain a comfortable lifestyle or not, Pettus said county employees appear grateful for this salary increase.
"Oh, they love it," he said. "They liked it last year with $1,500. They really like it this year with $2,000."
The increase is part of the budget for the new fiscal year, which begins Oct. 4.
