Of Alabama's four major metros, only one has seen real growth in wages over the past two years.

The average hourly wage in Mobile was $22.46 in December 2012, up 7 percent over two years after controlling for inflation. Meanwhile, wages in Birmingham-Hoover, Huntsville, and Montgomery shrank in real terms,

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Huntsville's average hourly wage is higher than Mobile's, at $23.78. But average wages in the Rocket City area have fallen 6.5 percent after inflation over the past two years, the report says.

At $21.81, average hourly wages in Birmingham-Hoover are actually higher than they were two years ago in nominal terms -- that is, without controlling for inflation. But because prices have risen in general over the past two years, workers in the Birmingham-Hoover area on average have less purchasing power today. Real wages in Birmingham-Hoover have fallen 1 percent, according to the report.

Two of Alabama's smaller metros received special attention in the report for their extreme cases of wage changes. In Gadsden, real average hourly wages are up 11.1 percent -- and Gadsden was just one of 18 metros across the U.S. to report growth in average wages every month for the past 24 months.

On the other side of the coin is the Anniston-Oxford area, where real hourly wages fell 13.3 percent on average. Anniston-Oxford was one of only seven U.S. metros where wages fell in each of the past 24 months.

With 5 of 11 metros having seen real wage growth over the past two years -- a 45 percent ratio -- Alabama's experience has been in line with the national trend. Across the U.S., 43 percent of all metros saw real wage growth over the past two years.

Average hourly wages and real two-year growth are listed for each Alabama metro below. Garner Economics used data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Population Survey and Current Employment Statistics Survey for its study.