Still, groceries and the cost of youth sports are taking a bite out of his paycheck, said Ritchey, who was taking a break Tuesday afternoon outside a downtown Omaha parking garage.

Ritchey, who formerly worked as an electrician, changed careers in 2010 and joined Hines after the local construction industry faltered in the recession. He said his current wages are comparable to what he earned as an electrician.

Jim Waugh, the business manager at the local sheet-metal workers’ union, said members have had “decent raises” lately. Still, he said, it isn’t all a rosy trip to the bank: Rising health care and pension costs are taking a bigger bite out of workers’ checks, he said.

And like the national statistics show, Waugh said income isn’t yet back up to pre-recession levels.

If your income isn’t back to where it was before the bottom fell out of the economy, you can still take heart, said Jones of the local HR group: Incomes probably already have eclipsed those levels since the Census Bureau collected its 2015 data.

“It’s a crazy time,” he said of some employers’ scrambles to sweeten offers to get the employees they want — sometimes a 10 percent bump to seal the deal. “It’s definitely good for our economy,” he said.