What does this research mean for the field?

US emergency medicine PGY-1 resident salary growth between 2021 and 2025 lagged behind inflation, and higher nominal salaries in high cost-of-living markets failed to fully offset local living expenses. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.INCREMENTAL. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.NEUTRAL.

What question did this study set out to answer?

To assess whether US emergency medicine resident salaries kept pace with cumulative inflation between 2021–2022 and 2025–2026 and evaluate how local cost-of-living adjustments alter purchasing power.

September 6, 2026AEM Education and Training

Evaluating Emergency Medicine Resident Salary Adequacy: Inflation Trends and Cost‐of‐Living Adjustment Across US Programs

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To assess whether US emergency medicine resident salaries kept pace with cumulative inflation between 2021–2022 and 2025–2026 and evaluate how local cost-of-living adjustments alter purchasing power.
Evaluated ACGME-accredited US emergency medicine residency programs using publicly available 2025–2026 PGY-1 base salaries (N = 271 of 295 identified) and paired 2021–2022 data (n = 209).
Adjusted compensation via the Quarter 3 2025 Cost of Living Index (COLI), benchmarked growth against an 18.331% CPI-U inflation increase, and analyzed regional differences with Kruskal–Wallis tests and simple linear regression.
Mean PGY-1 salary increased by 17.0% from $59,115 to $69,184, lagging behind the 18.331% cumulative inflation rate; 70 programs (33.5%) met or exceeded the benchmark, whereas 139 programs (66.5%) did not.
Each 1-point increase in COLI was associated with a nominal salary increase of $212 (95% CI, $188–$236; R² = 0.53; p < 0.001), but the West and Northeast still exhibited the lowest cost-of-living-adjusted salaries despite having the highest nominal pay.
Cost-of-living adjusted mean salaries varied substantially across programs, spanning from $37,510 in Manhattan, New York City, to $82,600 in Akron, Ohio.

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Implication

Longitudinal study reveals salary growth lagged inflation in emergency medicine residents, indicating that nominal pay increases fail to offset high regional living costs.

Cite This Study

Dehon et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a9d1ec828139818eab21ea2 https://doi.org/10.1002/aet2.70250

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Implication

Longitudinal study reveals salary growth lagged inflation in emergency medicine residents, indicating that nominal pay increases fail to offset high regional living costs.

Evaluating Emergency Medicine Resident Salary Adequacy: Inflation Trends and Cost‐of‐Living Adjustment Across US Programs

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Discussion

Implication

Cite This Study

Evaluating Emergency Medicine Resident Salary Adequacy: Inflation Trends and Cost‐of‐Living Adjustment Across US Programs

Key Points

Discussion

Implication

Cite This Study

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