February 22, 2008 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Real average weekly earnings, January 2008

Real average weekly earnings fell by 0.5 percent from December 2007 to January 2008 after seasonal adjustment.

Composition of change in real average weekly earnings of production or nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls, January 2008
[Chart data—TXT]

A 0.3-percent decrease in average weekly hours and a 0.4-percent increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) were partially offset by a 0.2-percent increase in average hourly earnings.

Average weekly earnings rose by 3.4 percent, seasonally adjusted, from January 2007 to January 2008. After deflation by the CPI-W, average weekly earnings decreased by 1.4 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 January 2008" (PDF) (HTML), news release USDL 08-0229.