Median weekly earnings of the nation's 105.4 million full-time wage and salary workers were $649 in the third quarter of 2005, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor has reported. This was 2.7% higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 3.8 percent in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) over the same period.

Highlights from the third-quarter data are:

• Women who usually worked full time had median earnings of $585 per week, or 81.7% of the $716 median for men. The female-to-male earnings ratios were higher among blacks (95.5%) and Hispanics or Latinos (86.5%) than among whites (80.6%) or Asians (79.0%).
  
  
• Median earnings for black men working at full-time jobs were $533 per week, 72.3% of the median for white men ($737). The difference was less among women, as black women's median earnings ($509) were 85.7% of those for their white counterparts ($594). Overall, median earnings of Hispanics or Latinos who worked full time ($462) were lower than those of blacks ($520), whites ($667), and Asians ($761).
  
  
• Among men, those age 55 to 64 and age 45 to 54 had the highest median weekly earnings, $858 and $848, respectively. Among women, earnings were highest for 45- to 54-year-olds and 55- to 64-year-olds, $640 and $639, respectively.
  
  
• Among the major occupational groups, persons employed full time in management, professional, and related occupations had the highest median weekly earnings - $1,103 for men and $812 for women. Men and women in service jobs earned the least.
  
  
• Full-time workers age 25 and over without a high school diploma had median weekly earnings of $413, compared with $583 for high school graduates (no college) and $1,014 for college graduates 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 $2,729 or more per week, compared with $1,858 or more for their female counterparts.

...back to 27 October 2005

Further information:
Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers: Third Quarter 2005
Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers

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