January 21, 2003 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Weekly earnings in the fourth quarter

Median weekly earnings of the nation's 97.7 million full-time wage and salary workers were $615 in the fourth quarter of 2002. This was 1.7 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 2.2 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 $543 per week in the fourth quarter of 2002, compared with $517 a year earlier. Median earnings of men who worked full time were $692 in the fourth quarter of 2002, compared with $683 a year earlier.

The female-to-male earnings ratio was 78.5 percent in the fourth 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: Fourth Quarter 2002" (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 03-17.