May 19, 2009 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Change in real average weekly earnings, March 2009-April 2009

Real average weekly earnings rose by 0.1 percent from March to April after seasonal adjustment.

Composition of change in real average weekly earnings of production or nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls, April 2009
[Chart data—TXT]

This increase stemmed from a 0.1-percent increase in average hourly earnings. Average weekly hours and the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) were unchanged.

Average weekly earnings rose by 1.3 percent, seasonally adjusted, from April 2008 to April 2009. After deflation by the CPI-W, average weekly earnings increased by 2.6 percent.

These earnings data are from the Current Employment Statistics Program. These data are for production and nonsupervisory workers in private nonfarm establishments. Earnings data are preliminary and subject to revision. Find out more in "Real Earnings in April 2009" (PDF) (HTML), news release USDL 09-0512.