Department of Labor Logo United States Department of Labor
Dot gov

The .gov means it's official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Weekly earnings by educational attainment in first quarter 2016

May 11, 2016

Full-time workers age 25 and older without a high school diploma had median weekly earnings of $494 in the first quarter of 2016. That compares with a median of $679 for high school graduates who never attended college and $782 for workers with some college or an associate degree. Median weekly earnings were $1,155 for workers with a bachelor's degree and $1,435 for workers with an advanced degree—a master’s, professional, or doctoral degree.

 

 

Selected percentiles of usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers age 25 and older, first quarter 2016
Characteristic 10th percentile 50th percentile (median) 90th percentile

Total

$409 $878 $2,091

Men

435 963 2,322

Women

389 779 1,765

Total, less than a high school diploma

315 494 957

Men, less than a high school diploma

334 526 1,031

Women, less than a high school diploma

290 415 696

Total, high school graduates, no college

377 679 1,408

Men, high school graduates, no college

401 751 1,544

Women, high school graduates, no college

339 596 1,111

Total, some college or associate degree

416 782 1,623

Men, some college or associate degree

459 893 1,858

Women, some college or associate degree

395 689 1,327

Total, bachelor's degree only

555 1,155 2,507

Men, bachelor's degree only

605 1,344 2,896

Women, bachelor's degree only

504 1,006 2,016

Total, advanced degree

695 1,435 3,120

Men, advanced degree

773 1,705 3,871

Women, advanced degree

642 1,232 2,409

Note: Ten percent of full-time wage and salary workers earn less than the upper limit of the 10th percentile; 50 percent earn less than the upper limit of the 50th percentile, or median; 90 percent earn less than the upper limit of the 90th percentile.

Among college graduates with advanced degrees, the highest earning 10 percent of men—whose earnings were at or above the 90th percentile—made $3,871 or more per week; the 90th percentile for women with advanced degrees was $2,409 or more. Weekly earnings for the lowest paid 10 percent of men with advanced degrees—whose earnings were below the 10th percentile—were less than $773 in the first quarter. That was slightly higher than the median earnings—the 50th percentile—of men who had completed high school but never attended college.

These data are from the Current Population Survey and are not seasonally adjusted. To learn more, see “Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers: First Quarter 2016” (HTML) (PDF). Full-time workers usually work 35 hours or more per week at their sole or main job.

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Weekly earnings by educational attainment in first quarter 2016 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2016/weekly-earnings-by-educational-attainment-in-first-quarter-2016.htm (visited March 29, 2024).

OF INTEREST
spotlight
Recent editions of Spotlight on Statistics


triangle