Professionals have long been taught a simple formula for career success: work hard, outperform your peers, and bigger paychecks will follow. But this year, employers are planning to reward their star staffers differently; instead of factoring in merit, more companies are considering general pay hikes spread out evenly, dubbed the “peanut butter raises” trend.
Around 44% of employers plan to roll out uniform, across-the-board wage bumps in 2026, according to a new Payscale report. About 16% of organizations are newly implementing these “peanut butter” raises: 9% say they already employ the pay strategy, and another 18% of organizations are considering it this year. And top-performing companies are all in on the approach. Around 56% of organizations that reported that they would exceed their revenue goals in 2025 are using or actively considering peanut butter pay increases.
