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IWS Documented News Service
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies                 Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations          Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor                  Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016                      Director, IWS News Bureau
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USUAL WEEKLY EARNINGS OF WAGE AND SALARY WORKERS: FOURTH QUARTER 2004 [26 January 2005]
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.nr0.htm
or
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf
[full-text, 12 pages]

  Median weekly earnings of the nation's 101.6 million full-time wage and
salary workers were $647 in the fourth quarter of 2004, the Bureau of Labor
Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today.  This was 3.5
percent higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 3.3 percent in
the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) over the same period.

   Data on usual 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 Explanatory Note.)  Highlights from the fourth-quarter
data are:

   --Women who usually worked full time had median earnings of $578 per
week, or 80.1 percent of the $722 median for men.  The female-to-male
earnings ratios were higher among blacks (96.8 percent) and Hispanics or
Latinos (84.7 percent) than among whites (78.8 percent) or Asians (74.5
percent). (See table 1.)

   --Median earnings for black men working at full-time jobs were $529 per
week, 70.8 percent of the median for white men ($747).  The difference was
less among women, as black women's median earnings ($512) were 86.9 percent
of those for their white counterparts ($589).  Overall, median earnings of
Hispanics or Latinos who worked full time ($467) were lower than those of
blacks ($519), whites ($671), and Asians ($698).  (See table 1.)

   --Among men, those age 45 to 54 and age 55 to 64 had the highest median
weekly earnings, $869 and $844, respectively.  Among women, earnings also
were highest for these two age groups--$626 for 45- to 54-year olds and
$622 for 55- to 64-year olds.  (See table 2.)

   --Among the major occupational groups, persons employed full time in
managerial, professional, and related occupations had the highest median
weekly earnings--$1,109 for men and $801 for women.  Men and women in
service jobs earned the least.  (See table 3.)

   --Full-time workers age 25 years and over without a high school diploma
had median weekly earnings of $404, compared with $581 for high school
graduates (no college) and $996 for college graduates holding at least a
bachelor'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 $2,894 or more per week, compared with $1,849 or more for their
female counterparts.  (See table 4.)

Annual averages for 2003 and 2004

   In addition to the data for the fourth quarter, this release includes 2003
and 2004 annual average weekly earnings for major demographic, occupation, and
education groups (tables 6, 7, and 8).  Annual average data on median usual
earnings for men and women by detailed occupational categories will appear in
the January 2005 issue of Employment and Earnings.

AND MORE...including TABLES...


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This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.

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Stuart Basefsky                 *
Director, IWS News Bureau               *
Institute for Workplace Studies *
Cornell/ILR School                      *
16 E. 34th Street, 4th Floor            *
New York, NY 10016                      *
                                        *
Telephone: (607) 255-2703               *
Fax: (607) 255-9641                     *
E-mail: smb6@cornell.edu                *
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