Usual Weekly Earnings Summary
Technical information: (202) 691-6378 USDL 09-0814 http://www.bls.gov/cps/ For release: 10:00 A.M. (EDT) Media contact: (202) 691-5902 Thursday, July 16, 2009 USUAL WEEKLY EARNINGS OF WAGE AND SALARY WORKERS: SECOND QUARTER 2009 Median weekly earnings of the nation's 100.1 million full-time wage and salary workers were $734 in the second quarter of 2009, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. This was 2.1 percent higher than a year earlier. The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) fell by 1.2 percent over the same period. Data on usual weekly earnings are collected as part of the Current Population Survey, a nationwide sample survey of households in which respondents are asked, among other things, how much each wage and salary worker usually earns. (See the Technical Note.) Highlights from the second-quarter data are: --Women who usually worked full time had median earnings of $652 per week, or 80.0 percent of the $815 median for men. The fe- male-to-male earnings ratios were higher among blacks (91.5 per- cent) and Hispanics (88.9 percent) than among whites (79.1 per- cent) or Asians (80.6 percent). (See table 1.) --Median earnings for black men working at full-time jobs were $620 per week, 73.6 percent of the median for white men ($842). The difference was smaller among women, as black women's median earn- ings ($567) were 85.1 percent of those for white women ($666). Overall, median earnings of Hispanics who worked full time ($547) were lower than those of blacks ($592), whites ($754), and Asians ($909). (See table 1.) --Among men, those age 45 to 54 and age 55 to 64 had the highest median weekly earnings, $961 and $964, respectively. Among women, weekly earnings were highest for those ages 55 to 64 ($721). (See table 2.) --Among the major occupational groups, persons employed full time in management, professional, and related occupations had the high- est median weekly earnings--$1,250 for men and $900 for women. Per- sons employed in service jobs earned the least. (See table 3.) --Full-time workers age 25 and over without a high school diploma had median weekly earnings of $465, compared with $630 for high school graduates (no college) and $1,140 for those holding at least a bach- elor's degree. Among college graduates with advanced degrees (profes- sional or master's degree and above), the highest earning 10 percent of male workers made $3,434 or more per week, compared with $2,130 or more for their female counterparts. (See table 4.)
- Usual Weekly Earnings Explanatory Note
- Table 1. Median usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by selected characteristics, quarterly averages, not seasonally adjusted
- Table 2. Median usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by age, race, Hispanic or Latino ethnicity, and sex, second quarter 2009 averages, not seasonally adjusted
- Table 3. Median usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by occupation and sex, quarterly averages, not seasonally adjusted
- Table 4. Quartiles and selected deciles of usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by selected characteristics, second quarter 2009 averages, not seasonally adjusted
- Table 5. Median usual weekly earnings of part-time wage and salary workers by selected characteristics, quarterly averages, not seasonally adjusted
- Access to historical data for the tables of the Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers News Release
- HTML version of the entire news release
The PDF version of the news release
Table of Contents
Last Modified Date: July 16, 2009