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Measures of Central Tendency for Wage Data

For more detailed information on the average wage data for any year, including a distribution by wage level, select a year and click "Go."

 


AWI data

AWI growth

As indicated in the explanation of the determination of the national average wage index (AWI), the latest annual increase in the "raw" average wages is applied to the last AWI to obtain the next one. Such raw average wages are the average amounts of net compensation (as distinct from total employee compensation) listed in the table below.

An average is just one measure of central tendency for any set of data. Another measure is a median. For our wage data, the median wage (or net compensation) is the wage "in the middle." That is, half of the workers earned below this level. The table below shows that the median wage is substantially less than the average wage. The reason for the difference is that the distribution of workers by wage level is highly skewed.

Average and Median Amounts of Net Compensation
Average net compensation Median net compensation Ratio of median to average
  Increases   Increases
Year Amount Annual Cumulative Amount Annual Cumulative
1990 $20,172.11 NA NA $14,498.74 NA NA 71.875%
1991 20,923.84 3.727% 3.727% 15,075.94 3.981% 3.981% 72.052%
1992 22,001.92 5.152% 9.071% 15,610.40 3.545% 7.667% 70.950%
1993 22,191.14 0.860% 10.009% 15,690.77 0.515% 8.222% 70.707%
1994 22,786.73 2.684% 12.962% 16,118.02 2.723% 11.168% 70.734%
1995 23,700.11 4.008% 17.489% 16,650.16 3.302% 14.839% 70.254%
1996 24,859.17 4.891% 23.235% 17,403.45 4.524% 20.034% 70.008%
1997 26,309.73 5.835% 30.426% 18,277.43 5.022% 26.062% 69.470%
1998 27,686.75 5.234% 37.253% 19,157.40 4.815% 32.131% 69.193%
1999 29,229.69 5.573% 44.902% 20,102.35 4.933% 38.649% 68.774%
2000 30,846.09 5.530% 52.915% 20,957.18 4.252% 44.545% 67.941%
2001 31,581.97 2.386% 56.563% 21,767.29 3.866% 50.132% 68.923%
2002 31,898.70 1.003% 58.133% 22,152.84 1.771% 52.791% 69.447%
2003 32,678.48 2.445% 61.998% 22,576.71 1.913% 55.715% 69.087%
2004 34,197.63 4.649% 69.529% 23,355.83 3.451% 61.089% 68.297%
2005 35,448.93 3.659% 75.732% 23,962.20 2.596% 65.271% 67.596%
2006 37,078.27 4.596% 83.810% 24,891.59 3.879% 71.681% 67.133%
Note: Median net compensation is estimated.

Average and median net compensation are shown in the graph below. Also shown is the ratio of median to average amounts.

Average and median wages (see table above)

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Last reviewed or modified December 10, 2007