Economic News Release

Technical information:  (202) 691-6378     USDL 08-0976
               http://www.bls.gov/cps/
                                           For release:  10:00 A.M. (EDT)
Media contact:          (202) 691-5902     Thursday, July 17, 2008
                                   
                                   
           USUAL WEEKLY EARNINGS OF WAGE AND SALARY WORKERS:
                          SECOND QUARTER 2008
                                   
   Median weekly earnings of the nation's 107.1 million full-time wage and 
salary workers were $719 in the second quarter of 2008, the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today.  This was 4.2 per-
cent higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 4.4 percent in the 
Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) over the same period.
   
   Data on usual earnings are collected as part of the Current Population Sur-
vey, a nationwide sample survey of households in which respondents are asked, 
among other things, how much each wage and salary worker usually earns.  (See 
the Technical Note.)  Highlights from the second-quarter data are:
     
   --Women who usually worked full time had median earnings of $634 per week, 
     or 79.3 percent of the $800 median for men.  The female-to-male earnings 
     ratios were higher among blacks (92.4 percent) and Hispanics (86.8 percent) 
     than among whites (78.4 percent) or Asians (76.0 percent).  (See table 1.)
     
   --Median earnings for black men working at full-time jobs were $615 per week, 
     74.4 percent of the median for white men ($827).  The difference was less 
     among women, as black women's median earnings ($568) were 87.7 percent of 
     those for their white counterparts ($648).  Overall, median earnings of 
     Hispanics who worked full time ($537) were lower than those of blacks ($591), 
     whites ($738), and Asians ($855).  (See table 1.)
     
   --Among men, those age 45 to 54 and 55 to 64 had the highest median weekly 
     earnings, $935 and $946, respectively.  Among women, weekly earnings were 
     highest for those age 55 to 64 ($716).  (See table 2.)
     
   --Among the major occupational groups, persons employed full time in managerial, 
     professional, and related occupations had the highest median weekly earnings--
     $1,243 for men and $884 for women.  Persons employed in service jobs earned 
     the least.  (See table 3.)
     
   --Full-time workers age 25 years and over without a high school diploma had med-
     ian weekly earnings of $449, compared with $620 for high school graduates (no 
     college) and $1,105 for those holding at least a bachelor's degree.  Among col-
     lege graduates with advanced degrees (professional or master's degree and above),
     the highest 10 percent of male workers made $3,235 or more per week, compared 
     with $2,070 or more for their female counterparts.  (See table 4.)