Average Weekly Wages in the District of Columbia:  Second Quarter 2007 (PDF)

District of Columbia ranks 4th highest in wages in the nation

The average weekly wage in the District of Columbia was $1,357 in the second quarter of 2007, 4.3 percent higher than one year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor.  Nationally, weekly wages averaged $820 and were up 4.6 percent over the year.  Regional Commissioner Sheila Watkins noted that the District of Columbia ranked 4th highest in wage level and 136th in rate of wage growth among the 328 largest counties (those with 75,000 or more jobs as measured by 2006 annual average employment) in the United States. 

Large County Average Weekly Wages

Average weekly wages were higher than the national average in 110 of the largest 328 U.S. counties.  New York County, N.Y., held the top position among the highest-paid large counties with an average weekly wage of $1,540.  Santa Clara, Calif., was second with an average weekly wage of $1,504, followed by Clayton, Ga. ($1,358), Washington, D.C. ($1,357), and Arlington, Va. ($1,352). 

Three of the 10 counties with the highest wages in the United States were located in or around the New York metropolitan area (New York, N.Y.; Fairfield, Conn.; and Somerset, N.J.), while 3 others were located in or around the San Francisco metropolitan area (Santa Clara, Calif.; San Francisco, Calif.; and San Mateo, Calif.), and two more were located in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area (Washington, D.C. and Arlington, Va.).  Rounding out the top 10 were Clayton, Ga., and Suffolk, Mass., which were located in the Atlanta and Boston metropolitan areas, respectively.  (See table 1.)
There were 218 counties with an average weekly wage below the national average in the second quarter of 2007.  The lowest average weekly wage was reported in Cameron County, Texas ($515), followed by the counties of Hidalgo, Texas ($518), Horry, S.C., and Webb, Texas ($545 each), and Yakima, Wash. ($555).

Over the year, the national average weekly wage rose by 4.6 percent.  Among the largest counties, Clayton County, Ga., led the nation in growth in average weekly wages, with an increase of 87.3 percent from the second quarter of 2006.  Queens, N.Y., was second with growth of 12.7 percent, followed by the counties of Rockingham, N.H. (10.1 percent), Ventura, Calif. (9.2 percent), and Lake, Ill. (9.1 percent).

Six large counties experienced over-the-year declines in average weekly wages.  The county of Saginaw, Mich., had the greatest decline (-5.2 percent), followed by Orleans County, La. (-2.9 percent).

State Average Weekly Wages

Nationally, 16 states had average weekly wage levels surpassing the U.S. average; 9 of these, including the District of Columbia, fell in a contiguous band along the east coast stretching from New Hampshire to Virginia.  The five highest wage levels in the nation were in the District of Columbia ($1,357), Connecticut ($1,033), New York ($1,020), Massachusetts ($1,008), and New Jersey ($989).  Average weekly wages in this group were 21 percent or more above that for the nation.  During this same period, three states had wage levels averaging less than 75 percent of national earnings: South Dakota ($590), Mississippi ($609), and Montana ($611).  (See table 2 and chart 1.)

Wyoming recorded the fastest wage growth (8.0 percent) among the states in the second quarter of 2007.  Five other states experienced wage growth above 6.0 percent from the second quarter of 2006--Utah (6.6 percent), Georgia (6.5 percent), Connecticut (6.4 percent), and Montana and New Hampshire (6.3 percent each).  At the other end of the scale, Delaware posted the smallest increase in wages, up 2.2 percent.  No state experienced an over-the-year decline.

Average weekly wage data by county are compiled under the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program, also known as the ES-202 program.  The data are derived from reports submitted by employers subject to state and federal unemployment insurance (UI) laws.  The 8.9 million employer reports cover 137.0 million full- and part-time workers.  The average weekly wage values are calculated by dividing quarterly total wages by the average of the three monthly employment levels of those covered by UI programs; this result is then divided by 13, the number of weeks in a quarter.  It is to be noted, therefore, that over-the-year wage changes for geographic areas may reflect shifts in the composition of employment by industry, occupation, and such other factors as hours of work.  Thus, wages may vary among counties, metropolitan areas, or states for reasons other than changes in the average wage level.  Data for all states, Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), counties, and the nation are available on the BLS Web site at www.bls.gov/cew/; however, data in QCEW press releases have been revised (see Technical Note below) and may not match the data contained on the Bureau’s Web site.

Additional statistics and other information

An annual bulletin, Employment and Wages, features comprehensive information by detailed industry on establishments, employment, and wages for the nation and all states.  Employment and Wages Annual Averages, 2006 will be available for sale in early 2008 from the United States Government Printing Office, Superintendent of Documents, P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh, PA, 15250 or by calling 1-866-512-1800.  The 2006 bulletin will also be available in a portable document format (PDF) on the BLS Web site.  In addition, the quarterly press release, County Employment and Wages, presents employment and wage data for the largest counties in the U.S.

Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request.  Voice phone: 202-691-5200; TDD message referral phone number: 1-800-877-8339.

For personal assistance or further information on the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages data, as well as other Bureau data, contact the Mid-Atlantic Information Office at 215-597-3282 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET.

QCEW-based news releases issued by other regional offices have been placed at one convenient Web site location, www.bls.gov/cew/cewregional.htm.

Technical Note

QCEW data are the sums of individual establishment records reflecting the number of establishments that exist in a county or industry at a point in time.  For this reason, county and industry data are not designed to be used as a time series.