Worker Salaries are Poised to Climb in 2016

American workers are poised in 2016 to finally get what they’ve been missing for years: higher salaries.

Even as the recovery from the Great Recession brought booming corporate profits, most workers’ salaries have barely kept up with inflation. But now, as the nation edges ever closer to full employment and with layoffs near historical lows, there are growing indications that ordinary workers are finally starting to reap some of the gains of the 6 1/2 year-old recovery.

A variety of wage and salary statistics — from payroll processors, private analysts andFederal Reserve researchers — indicate that the underlying rate of pay increase for workers has been picking up much more in the last year than commonly thought.

“We’re at a turning point,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at research firm Moody’s Analytics. “I think it’ll be a breakout year [in 2016] for wage growth.”