Table 1. Twelve high-paying full-time(1) occupations that were ranked in the top 20 in 1997 and 2005, percent change in earnings, National Compensation Survey
Occupation (1997 data) 1997 ranking Occupation (2005 data) 2005 ranking 2005 data Percent change 1997-2005
Hourly earnings(2) Mean weekly hours
Mean Relative error(3)

Airplane pilots and navigators

 1 Airplane pilots and navigators 1 $97.51 13.0 23.5 51.3

Law teachers

 2 Economics teachers 2 66.23 19.2 42.8 30.4

Chief executives and general administrators, public administration

 3 Judges 3 61.38 11.1 39.8 44.0

Economics teachers

 4 Physicians 4 61.34 11.0 41.9 63.6

Judges

 6 Agriculture and forestry teachers 6 55.12 23.5 34.6 31.4

Agriculture and forestry teachers

 7 Law teachers 7 55.10 15.3 38.9 -6.1

Physics teachers

 8 Physics teachers 8 53.20 8.5 38.7 31.7

Medical science teachers

 11 Chief executives and general administrators, public administration 10 52.11 6.3 42.8 1.9

Physicians

 12 Medical science teachers 11 51.79 10.2 45.7 34.4

Dentists

 14 Lawyers 12 50.89 4.9 41.5 46.8

Managers, marketing, advertising, and public relations

 18 Dentists 14 46.30 11.0 41.3 26.1

Lawyers

 19 Managers, marketing, advertising, and public relations 17 45.33 4.2 41.2 30.0

Footnotes:
(1) Employees are classified as working either a full-time or a part-time schedule based on the definition used by each establishment.
(2) Earnings are the straight-time hourly wages or salaries paid to employees. They include incentive pay, cost-of-living adjustments, and hazard pay. Excluded are premium pay for overtime, vacations, holidays, nonproduction bonuses, and tips. The mean is computed by totaling the pay of all workers and dividing by the number of workers, weighted by hours.
(3) The relative standard error (RSE) is the standard error expressed as a percent of the estimate. It can be used to calculate a "confidence interval" around a sample estimate. For more information about RSEs, see National Compensation Survey: Occupational Wages in the United States, June 2005, Bulletin 2581 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, August 2006), Appendix A, "Technical Note," pp. 154–55.