If you type your current salary into the "desired salary" box, or aim for the bottom of the posted band, you can lock in a real pay cut before anyone has negotiated with you. Indeed Hiring Lab's October 2026 snapshot has posted wages up 2.4% year over year while prices rose 3.7%, and that happened while job postings were climbing back into growth. Demand is back. Advertised pay is still behind.
Why are posted pay ranges rising slower than inflation?
Posted ranges lag because employers update their salary structures far more slowly than their raise budgets. Payscale projects that 2027 salary structures will rise just 0.6%, while overall raise budgets rise 3.5%.
A salary structure is the set of pay ranges a company assigns to each job level. The band you see on a posting comes from that structure, not from a fresh read of the market. The raise budget pays the people already on staff. The structure barely moves.
Payscale's figure, against a 3.5% overall raise budget for the same year.
Indeed's numbers show what that looks like in postings:
- Posted wages grew 2.4% year over year in September 2026, against CPI inflation of 3.7%.
- Indeed controls for job titles, so this is not a change in which jobs are being posted. The same jobs are being advertised at pay that is falling behind in real terms.
- Indeed's postings index hit 103.8, up 2.8% year over year, after sitting at -8.1% in October 2025.
Indeed Hiring Lab economists Cory Stahle and Sneha Puri have been tracking that recovery (Puri has tied engineering job growth to data centers). Demand has turned. The pay ranges attached to that demand haven't caught up yet.
The posted band is last year's market with this year's date on it.
So the top of a band doesn't tell you what the role is worth today. It tells you how much budget was left over the last time the structure was revised.
How much more do job switchers earn in 2026?
The median job switcher got a 4.7% raise in the year to September 2026, while the median person who stayed got 3.4%, according to the Atlanta Fed Wage Growth Tracker. With inflation at 3.7%, that works out to a real gain of about 1 point for switchers and a real loss of about 0.3 points for stayers.
The Atlanta Fed Wage Growth Tracker is a three-month moving median of individual workers' wage changes. It measures what people actually got paid. Indeed measures advertised pay. Because they aren't the same measure, read the comparison below as a set of directions, not exact spreads.
| Measure | Nominal | Real (minus 3.7% CPI) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Posted wages, Sept 2026 | 2.4% | about -1.3 pts | Indeed Hiring Lab |
| Median job switcher, Sept 2026 | 4.7% | about +1.0 pt | Atlanta Fed |
| Median job stayer, Sept 2026 | 3.4% | about -0.3 pt | Atlanta Fed |
| All workers, Sept 2026 | 3.9% | about +0.2 pt | Atlanta Fed |
| 2027 raise budget (Payscale) | 3.5% | below today's CPI | Payscale |
The switcher premium isn't handed to you automatically. It's the median result for people who changed jobs, and that includes everyone who negotiated, everyone who got hired high in the range, and everyone who did neither. If you start from your old salary or the band minimum, you're putting yourself below that median before the first call.
It's also getting smaller. In August the switcher figure was 5.0% and the stayer figure was 3.6%. One month later they were 4.7% and 3.4%.
What to put for desired salary on a job application
Put a range whose bottom is at least your current pay plus inflation plus the switcher premium, which comes to roughly 5% above what you earn now, and whose top reaches into the upper half of the posted band. Don't type your current salary.
This is a heuristic, not a law of economics. It just turns the numbers above into a floor:
Floor = current pay × (1 + 3.7% inflation + 1.3-point switcher premium) ≈ current pay × 1.05
On a $90,000 salary, that floor is about $94,500. That's before any upside for a bigger scope, a harder stack, or a tougher market. It's the number below which switching probably leaves you no better off than staying.
To fill in the field:
- Work out your floor with the formula above.
- Find the midpoint of the posted band. If the posting lists $110,000 to $140,000, the midpoint is $125,000.
- Set the bottom of your range at whichever is higher, your floor or the band midpoint.
- Set the top in the upper quarter of the band, or above it if your scope clearly goes beyond the posting.
- If the form only takes one number, enter your target, not your floor. Whatever you type becomes the ceiling.
Asking for the upper half isn't aggressive. In WTW's 2026 survey, 36% of employers said they deal with tight ranges by hiring new people higher in the range. The upper half is where new hires are expected to land.
The harder question is whether you're an upper-half candidate for this particular posting. That depends on fit, not on how confident you sound. Refolk checks this before you hit submit: it scores how well your actual work history matches the posting's requirements, so you know whether you're arguing for the top of the band or should settle near the middle.
Who is actually asking about your salary?
The recruiter who asks for your salary expectations almost never sets the budget. In Refolk's index of professional profiles, about 122,714 US professionals hold recruiter or talent-acquisition titles, against about 5,126 who hold compensation-setting titles. That's roughly 24 recruiters for every compensation professional.
Derived from Refolk's index: 122,714 recruiter and TA titles vs. 5,126 compensation and total-rewards titles.
A compensation professional is the person who builds the salary structure and signs off on exceptions to it. Their titles look like Compensation Analyst, Compensation Manager, Compensation Partner, or Total Rewards Manager. In a 25-profile sample from Refolk's index, these people worked at companies like Figma and Okta in the US and Google, Netflix, Apple, and Accenture in the UK. That's an illustration of where the role sits, not a ranking. (The UK shows only 143 compensation titles in the index. Coverage there is probably uneven, so treat the UK-to-US gap as directional, not exact.)
Why this matters for your answer:
- The recruiter's question is a screen. It checks whether you fit inside the approved range. It isn't where the final number gets decided.
- One low number becomes the ceiling. Once you've named it, it travels with your application, and it's hard to get offered more than you said you wanted.
- A market-anchored range gets you through the screen. It keeps you in the pipeline until you reach the person who can approve an exception.
A first-call answer that works: "For this scope, I'm targeting $125,000 to $140,000 base. If base is tight, I'm open to talking about how the package is structured." It's a range, it's anchored on the market, and it gives the employer room to move without giving away your floor.
Do you have to share your current salary?
Usually not. About 18 states plus DC restrict or ban salary-history questions, including Virginia as of July 1, 2026, and even where the question is legal, you don't have to volunteer the answer. Separately, as of October 1, 2026, 18 of the 51 US jurisdictions have a statewide pay-transparency law and 15 require the range in the posting.
The rules depend heavily on where you are:
- Virginia (since July 1, 2026): pay range required in postings, plus a ban on salary-history questions for private employers.
- Texas: no salary-history ban and no pay-range law. You may see no band at all and get asked directly what you earn now.
- The 15 jurisdictions that require a range in the posting: you'll see a band, and that band is the lagging number described above.
The reason to leave your old salary out is compounding. If you've been getting stayer raises (3.4% in the latest Atlanta Fed reading) while prices rose 3.7%, your current pay already trails the market. Using it as your anchor carries that shortfall into the new job, and every percentage raise after that compounds from a lower base.
When asked, redirect: "I'd rather focus on the range for this role. Based on the scope, my target is $X to $Y." If they push, repeat it.
How to negotiate a salary offer when the pay range is frozen
Push on the levers employers already use to work around frozen bands: placement higher in the range, retention or spot bonuses, and higher starting ranges. In WTW's 2026 survey, 36%, 34%, and 32% of employers respectively said they use these tools.
These are good asks because they're already approved workarounds. You aren't asking the company to break its pay policy. You're asking it to use a tool it already uses.
| Employer workaround (WTW, 2026) | Share of employers | What you ask for |
|---|---|---|
| Hire higher in salary ranges | 36% | Placement at or above midpoint |
| Retention bonuses or spot awards | 34% | Sign-on or first-year retention bonus |
| Raise starting ranges | 32% | A check on whether the band is current |
The bigger reason to push hard at the offer stage is what comes after. Raise budgets for 2027 are flat:
- WorldatWork: 3.6%, the fourth straight year without a higher annual projection.
- WTW: 3.4%.
- Payscale: 3.5%, with 79% of US workers scheduled for a base increase, down from 84%.
- Mercer: 3.2% merit, 3.5% total.
WTW's Lori Wisper has said employers will stay in the "land of 3%" for the foreseeable future. In practice, the offer may be the largest raise you see for several years, and every later 3% increase is calculated from it.
To approve higher placement, a comp team needs evidence: scope, outcomes, and requirements you clearly meet. That evidence comes from your resume, not your negotiation script. Refolk rewrites your resume from your own history for each posting, so the bullets the compensation team reads match the requirements you're using to justify the upper half of the band.
Salary expectations 2027: why a shrinking premium means you should ask for more
A shrinking switcher premium is a reason to ask for more now, not less. Postings are recovering faster than pay structures are being updated, and that gap is the candidate's leverage until the structures catch up.
The timing:
- Indeed's postings index is up 2.8% year over year, after sitting at -8.1% in October 2025.
- Payscale's structures are moving 0.6% for 2027.
- The switcher premium fell from 1.4 points in August (5.0% vs 3.6%) to 1.3 points in September (4.7% vs 3.4%).
Employers will feel the competition for candidates before their bands reflect it. While that's true, the posted range understates what a strong hire costs, and the tools in the WTW table are how employers close the difference. Candidates who give the band minimum because the premium "is shrinking anyway" are giving up the one period when the gap favors them.
FAQ
How much of a raise should I ask for when changing jobs in 2026?
The median switcher got 4.7% in the year to September 2026, per the Atlanta Fed, against 3.7% inflation. Treat about 5% over current pay as the minimum where switching makes financial sense (a rule of thumb, not a guarantee), and add to it for bigger scope or a stronger fit. Raise budgets for 2027 sit around 3.2% to 3.6%, so the starting number matters more than any raise that follows.
Is it bad to ask above the posted pay range?
Not if your scope supports it. Bands lag by design (Payscale projects a 0.6% structure increase for 2027), and 32% of employers in WTW's survey are raising starting ranges to compete. A small ask above the top, backed by specific evidence, can get the comp team to check whether the band is still current. A large unsupported jump is more likely to end the conversation.
What if the recruiter insists on my current salary?
Redirect to the range for this role and give your target. In states that ban salary-history questions, including Virginia since July 1, 2026, they shouldn't be asking. In states like Texas with no ban, you can still decline. Your current salary reflects your old employer's pay structure, and using it as the anchor carries any below-inflation raises into the new job.