July 24, 2006 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Usual weekly earnings, second quarter 2006

Median weekly earnings of the nation's 105.9 million full-time wage and salary workers were $659 in the second quarter of 2006.

Median usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by selected characteristics, 2nd quarter 2006 averages
[Chart data—TXT]

Median earnings for black men working at full-time jobs were $573 per week, 76.1 percent of the median for white men ($753). The difference was less among women, as black women's median earnings ($511) were 84.9 percent of those for their white counterparts ($602).

Overall, median earnings of Hispanics or Latinos who worked full time ($485) were lower than those of blacks ($534), whites ($678), and Asians ($765).

Women who usually worked full time had median earnings of $593 per week, or 81.1 percent of the $731 median for men. The female-to-male earnings ratios were higher among blacks (89.2 percent) and Hispanics or Latinos (86.1 percent) than among Asians (81.6 percent) or whites (79.9 percent).

These data are from the BLS Current Population Survey. To learn more, see "Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers: Second Quarter 2006" (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 06-1236. The median is the amount which divides a given earnings distribution into two equal groups, one having earnings above the median and the other having earnings below the median. Wage and salary workers are workers who receive wages, salaries, commissions, tips, payment in kind, or piece rates; this group includes employees in both the private and public sectors but excludes all self-employed persons.

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