Median weekly earnings of the nation's 108.3 million full-time wage and salary workers were $700 in the fourth quarter of 2007, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on January 17. This was 2.6 percent higher than a year earlier compared with a gain of 4.0 percent in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) 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. Highlights from the fourth-quarter data are:
Women who usually worked full time had median earnings of $618 per week, or 79.8 percent of the $774 median for men. The female-to-male earnings ratios were higher among Hispanics (92.1 percent) and blacks (90.0 percent) than among whites (79.0 percent) or Asians (75.6 percent).
Median earnings for black men working at full-time jobs were $599 per week, 74.9 percent of the median for white men ($800). The difference was less among women, as black women's median earnings ($539) were 85.3 percent of those for their white counterparts ($632). Overall, median earnings of Hispanics who worked full time ($507) were lower than those of blacks ($574), whites ($722) and Asians ($856).
Among men, those age 55 to 64 and age 45 to 54 had the highest median weekly earnings, $930 and $927, respectively. Among women, earnings were highest for those age 55 to 64 ($702).
Among the major occupational groups, persons employed full time in managerial, professional and related occupations had the highest median weekly earnings – $1,223 for men and $861 for women. Persons employed in service jobs earned the least.
Full-time workers age 25 and over without a high school diploma had median weekly earnings of $424 compared with $610 for high school graduates (no college) and $1,086 for those holding at least a bachelor's degree. Among college graduates with advanced degrees (professional or master's degree and above), the highest earning 10 percent of male workers made $2,910 or more per week compared with $2,095 or more for their female counterparts.
Read the full report and view all of the data tables by clicking on the link below:
ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/news.release/wkyeng.txt
