April 22, 2005 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Real weekly earnings, March 2005

Real average weekly earnings fell by 0.3 percent from February 2005 to March 2005 after seasonal adjustment.

Composition of change in real average weekly earnings of production or nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls, March 2005
[Chart data—TXT]

A 0.3-percent increase in average hourly earnings was more than offset by a 0.6 percent-increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). Average weekly hours were unchanged.

Average weekly earnings rose by 2.6 percent, seasonally adjusted, from March 2004 to March 2005. After deflation by the CPI-W, average weekly earnings decreased by 0.5 percent over the year.

These earnings data are from the Current Employment Statistics Program. These data are for production and nonsupervisory workers in private nonfarm establishments. Earnings data are preliminary and subject to revision. Find out more in "Real Earnings in March 2005" (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 05-688.

Happy 10th Birthday, TED!

The very first issue of The Editor's Desk (TED) was posted on September 28, 1998. TED was the first online-only publication of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For 10 years, BLS has been committed to posting a new TED article each business day, for a total of over 2,400 articles so far.

Find out more about the story of TED