July 25, 2000 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Weekly earnings of full-time workers in second quarter

Median weekly earnings of the nation's 100.2 million full-time wage and salary workers were $566 in the second quarter of 2000. This was 4.2 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 3.3 percent in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) over the same period.

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Women who usually worked full time had median earnings of $485 per week, or 75.8 percent of the $640 median for men. The female-to-male earnings ratios were higher among Hispanics (85.3 percent) and blacks (80.9 percent) than among whites (74.8 percent).

Data on weekly earnings are from the Current Population Survey. Find more information on earnings in "Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers: Second Quarter 2000," news release USDL 00-203.