The best way to sum up the latest trend in deferred wage increases is to quote Yogi Berra: The future ain’t what it used to be.

Among other negotiated wage changes, Bloomberg BNA’s database of contract settlements keeps track of deferred increases, which are wage changes that kick in after the contract’s initial year.* The database contains 1,304 records of contracts, ratified in 2012 or earlier, that called for deferred increases to be paid in 2013. That’s about the same number of contracts as in previous years.

But while the number of deferred increases has remained the same over time, the sizes of the deferments have not. The average (mean) wage increase payable in 2013 under contracts negotiated in earlier years is 2.1 percent, the lowest wage hike since we started computing averages in 2003. (We’ve also calculated weighted averages and medians going back to 1997, and 2013 was the lowest year on record by those measurements as well.)

Up until the turn of the decade, the average deferred wage increase remained above 3 percent, year in and year out. But then, perhaps influenced by the financial crisis and recession, employers and unions began negotiating smaller and smaller wage hikes for both first years and future years.

The average wage increase deferred by previous contracts to both 2008 and 2009 was 3.3 percent. That average slipped to 3 percent for deferred payments for 2010, and fell again to 2.6 percent for 2011. Wage increases set for 2012, like 2013, hit the new low of 2.1 percent.

The lowest average deferred increase for 2013 is in the printing industry (0.9 percent), while the highest average is in airlines (3.8 percent). In the manufacturing industry, the average deferred increase set to kick in for 2013 is 2.1 percent, which was actually up slightly from 2.0 percent for 2012.