July 20, 2001 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Weekly earnings by demographics in second quarter

Median weekly earnings of the nation's 99.9 million full-time wage and salary workers were $595 in the second quarter of 2001.

[Chart data—TXT]

Women who usually worked full time had median earnings of $514 per week, or 77.1 percent of the $667 median for men. Female-to-male earnings ratios were higher among Hispanics (86.1 percent) and blacks (85.7 percent) than among whites (76.0 percent).

Median earnings for black men working at full-time jobs were $537 per week, 78.2 percent of the median for white men ($687). The difference was much less among women, as black women's median earnings ($460) were 88.1 percent of those for their white counterparts ($522).

Overall, median earnings of Hispanics who worked full time ($417) were lower than those of blacks ($495) and whites ($609).

Data on weekly earnings are from the Current Population Survey. Find more information on earnings in "Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers: Second Quarter 2001," news release USDL 01-228.