August 20, 2002 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Real average weekly earnings fall in July 

Real average weekly earnings declined by 0.8 percent from June to July after seasonal adjustment.

Composition of change in real average weekly earnings of production or nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls, July 2002
[Chart data—TXT]

A 0.9-percent decrease in average weekly hours and a 0.2-percent increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) were only partly offset by a 0.3-percent rise in average hourly earnings.

From July 2001 to July 2002, real average weekly earnings rose by 1.3 percent.

These earnings data are a product of 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 July 2002," (PDF) (TXT) news release USDL 02-481.

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