Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Usual Weekly Earnings Summary – Fourth Quarter, 2014



USUAL WEEKLY EARNINGS OF WAGE AND SALARY WORKERS FOURTH QUARTER 2014

Median weekly earnings of the nation's 107.4 million full-time wage and salary workers
were $799 in the fourth quarter of 2014 (not seasonally adjusted), the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics reported today. This was 1.7 percent higher than a year earlier,
compared with a gain of 1.2 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. (See the Technical Note.)
Data shown in this news release are not seasonally adjusted unless otherwise specified.
Highlights from the fourth-quarter data are:

   --Median weekly earnings were $799 in the fourth quarter of 2014. Women who usually
     worked full time had median weekly earnings of $724, or 82.1 percent of the $882
     median for men. (See table 2.)

   --The women's-to-men's earnings ratio varied by race and ethnicity. White women
     earned 81.4 percent as much as their male counterparts, compared with black
     (90.3 percent), Asian (77.4 percent), and Hispanic women (86.2 percent). (See
     table 2.)

   --Among the major race and ethnicity groups, median weekly earnings for black men
     working at full-time jobs were $667 per week, or 73.5 percent of the median for
     white men ($907). The difference was less among women, as black women's median
     earnings ($602) were 81.6 percent of those for white women ($738). Overall,
     median earnings of Hispanics who worked full time ($600) were lower than those
     of blacks ($621), whites ($823), and Asians ($959). (See table 2.)

   --Usual weekly earnings of full-time workers varied by age. For men, those age
     45 to 54 and age 55 to 64 had the highest median weekly earnings ($1,012 and
     $1,029, respectively). Weekly earnings were highest for women age 35 to 64:
     weekly earnings were $784 for women age 35 to 44, $774 for women age 45 to 54,
     and $790 for women age 55 to 64. Workers age 16 to 24 had the lowest median
     weekly earnings, at $493. (See table 3.)

   --Among the major occupational groups, persons employed full time in management,
     professional, and related occupations had the highest median weekly earnings--
     $1,366 for men and $999 for women. Men and women employed in service jobs
     earned the least, $588 and $470, respectively. (See table 4.)

   --By educational attainment, full-time workers age 25 and over without a high
     school diploma had median weekly earnings of $491, compared with $664 for
     high school graduates (no college) and $1,224 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 $3,508 or more per week, compared with $2,394 or more for their female
     counterparts. (See table 5.)

   --Seasonally adjusted median weekly earnings were $796 in the fourth quarter of
     2014, essentially unchanged from the previous quarter ($797). (See table 1.)

Annual Averages for 2013 and 2014

In addition to the data for the fourth quarter, this news release includes 2013
and 2014 annual averages of median weekly earnings for major demographic and
occupational groups, and 2014 annual average data for educational attainment
groups. (See tables 7, 8, and 9.) Annual average data on median usual weekly
earnings for men and women by detailed occupational categories will be posted
online at www.bls.gov/cps/tables.htm when they become available.

The PDF version of the news release

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Posted by at
Labels: ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)