Fewer small businesses in U.S. plan to raise wages, NFIB Says

Fewer U.S. small-business owners said in October that they plan to raise wages in coming months after 19 percent said they recently boosted compensation for their workers.

A total of 13 percent of managers said that they anticipate increasing pay, according to the seasonally adjusted net results of 1,502 respondents to a survey by the National Federation of Independent Businesses. That's down two points from September, when 15 percent said they expected higher salaries and 18 percent said they had recently increased pay.

The survey by the NFIB, a lobbying group that says it has 350,000 small and independent business owners as members, was a leading indicator of national wage growth until 2012, when the correlation broke down.

Since the start of 2013, the percentage of smaller companies preparing to pay their workers more increased from as low as 6 percent. Average hourly earnings reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics rose 2 percent in October from the previous year.