April 15, 2005 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Counties with fastest pay growth, third quarter 2004

Among the Nation’s largest counties, St. Joseph County, Indiana (which includes South Bend), had the largest over-the-year gain in average weekly wages in the third quarter of 2004, an increase of 10.4 percent.

[Chart data—TXT]

Suffolk, Massachusetts (which includes Boston), was second, followed by the counties of Loudoun, Virginia (an outer suburb of Washington, DC), Rockingham, New Hampshire (which includes Portsmouth), and Arlington, Virginia (a close-in suburb of Washington, DC).

In the U.S. overall, average weekly wages were 4.0 percent higher in the third quarter of 2004 than in the third quarter of 2003.

The BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages program produced these data. Pay data presented here are for all workers covered by State and Federal unemployment insurance programs. The Nation’s largest counties are those that had employment levels of at least 75,000 in 2003. Find more about pay and employment in large counties in "County Employment and Wages: Third Quarter 2004" (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 05–623.