Nearly one in four white collar workers has stalled in their career, amounting to a “hidden crisis,” according to a new report. When careers stall, workers don’t receive promotions and that their salaries sometimes hardly keep up with inflation.
“Unlike unemployment, this crisis is not tracked in official statistics, yet it results in underutilized talent for employers and significant cumulative lost wages for individuals,” said the report from New York University’s School of Professional Studies in partnership with the Burning Glass Institute. “For example, the financial penalty for the average stalled software developers adds up to a deficit of over $43,000 over 15 years compared to their more upwardly mobile peers.”
What is causing the crisis? Based on the 1.3 million career histories included in the report, nearly every worker had a bachelor’s degree, indicating that postsecondary education alone isn’t sufficient to sustain career momentum. At the same time, Americans hold an estimated $1.7 trillion in college debt, stressing the need for meaningful career (and wage) advancement to pay down that debt.
“Something beyond the degree itself is sorting workers into divergent trajectories,” said the report.
Researchers focused on office occupations across business and management, clerical and administrative services, IT and math, and sales and customer service. Stall rates ranged from 20.7% in information technology to 30.2% in public administration.
Often, the signs of a mid-career stall can be spotted earlier in someone’s career, the researchers said. By the 10-year mark, most of those who stall will have already fallen behind. That means an average of 1.5 internal promotions rather than 1.9 and 30% wage growth compared to 71% growth in peers who have kept pace.
“Our analysis also shows that stall is not random; it is shaped by the interplay between a role’s structure and the individuals within it, following predictable patterns,” the researchers wrote. They also said that mid-career stall is in fact “a structural problem, not an individual failure.”
Last month, an analysis from the Pew Research Center noted that “without adjusting for inflation, median weekly wages more than doubled between the end of 1999 and the end of 2025,” but that real buying power only increased by 11% to 22% when factoring in inflation. It also noted that real wages fell after factoring in inflation for the five years leading up to December 2025.
“This report reveals that this phenomenon [career stalling] is a widespread and consequential barrier to economic mobility in today’s labor market,” said the NYU report.
Along with stalling wages and career advancement, many American workers are also dealing with concerns about artificial intelligence and automation shaking up the labor force.
“Employment is necessary, but not sufficient for sustained prosperity,” the NYU report explained. "Career momentum matters. By detecting the warning signs visible within the first decade and pursuing targeted reskilling into adjacent roles, workers and employers can work together to rebuild career momentum, ensuring that talent does not remain stranded.”
According to the researchers, occupational structure, education and credentials and early career trajectory are all factors to look at when trying to prevent career stagnation. They also said strategic reskilling into adjacent, higher-mobility roles,” can help reduce the risk of stalling by more than 80% in some cases.
“The key is not starting over but moving laterally into roles where a worker’s existing skills unlock a steeper trajectory,” said the report.
