February 13, 2002 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Middle Atlantic tops in hourly earnings in 2000

Workers in the Middle Atlantic division—defined as New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania—had the highest average hourly earnings of any region of the country in 2000.

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Private industry and State and local government workers in the Middle Atlantic area averaged $18.25 per hour in 2000. The next highest hourly earnings were in New England, with a mean of $17.45, and in the Pacific States, with a mean of $17.15. The area with the lowest hourly earnings was East South Central, where the average was $12.64 per hour.

In the country as a whole, hourly earnings averaged $15.80 for private industry and State and local government workers in 2000.

These data on earnings are a product of the BLS National Compensation Survey. Additional information is available from National Compensation Survey: Occupational Wages in the United States, 2000, (PDF 866K), BLS Bulletin 2548. Geographic areas in this article are referred to as "census divisions." Note that the Middle Atlantic division includes the New York City metropolitan area—which consists of parts of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut—and the Philadelphia area—which consists of parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland.