October 22, 2002 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Weekly earnings in the third quarter

Median weekly earnings of the nation's 99.8 million full-time wage and salary workers were $605 in the third quarter of 2002. This was 1.7 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 1.6 percent in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) over the same period.

[Chart data—TXT]

Women who usually worked full time had median earnings of $528 per week in the third quarter of 2002, compared with $507 a year earlier. Median earnings of men who worked full time were $676 in the third quarter of 2002, about the same as a year earlier ($674).

The female-to-male earnings ratio was 78.1 percent in the third quarter of 2002.

Data on weekly earnings are from the Current Population Survey. Figures in this article are not seasonally adjusted. Find more information on earnings in "Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers: Third Quarter 2002" (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 02-599.