November 25, 2002 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Lafayette County, Louisiana had highest growth in pay in 2001

Among the Nation’s largest counties—those with employment levels of at least 100,000—Lafayette County, Louisiana, had the largest increase in average annual pay from 2000 to 2001(8.2 percent). Dutchess County, New York, had the second largest increase (7.4 percent).

[Chart data—TXT]

The county of Escambia, Florida, was next, with average annual pay increasing by 7.1 percent, followed by Fresno County, California (6.6 percent), and the counties of San Francisco, California, Will, Illinois, and Baltimore, Maryland, each of which had increases of 6.2 percent.

Fifteen large counties showed declines in average annual pay from 2000 to 2001. After experiencing extraordinary growth from 1999 to 2000, average annual pay declined sharply in Santa Clara County, California (–13.5 percent), Morris County, New Jersey (–10.9 percent), San Mateo County, California (–6.8 percent), Washington County, Oregon (–5.2 percent), and Ada County, Idaho (–4.0 percent). 

In the U.S. overall, average annual pay grew 2.5 percent from 2000 to 2001.

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. Find more information on pay in large counties in 2001 in "Employment and Average Annual Pay for Large Counties, 2001," news release USDL 02–650. In previous issues of this news release, the Nation’s largest counties included those employing 75,000 or more workers.