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Median weekly earnings were $849 in the fourth quarter of 2016

January 30, 2017

Median weekly earnings of the nation’s 111.3 million full-time wage and salary workers were $849 in the fourth quarter of 2016. Women had median weekly earnings of $758, or 81.8 percent of the $927 median for men.

Median usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity, fourth quarter 2016
Race or Hispanic ethnicity Total Women Men

Total, 16 years and over

$849 $758 $927

Hispanic or Latino

646 595 685

Black or African American

675 650 706

White

881 778 959

Asian

1,022 908 1,147

The women’s-to-men’s earnings ratio varied by race and ethnicity in the fourth quarter of 2016. Black women earned 92.1 percent as much as their male counterparts, compared with Hispanic women (86.9 percent), White women (81.1 percent), and Asian women (79.2 percent).

Among the major race and ethnicity groups, median weekly earnings for Black men working at full-time jobs were $706, or 73.6 percent of the median for White men ($959). The difference was less among women, as Black women’s median earnings ($650) were 83.5 percent of those for White women ($778). Overall, median earnings of Hispanics who worked full time ($646) were lower than those of Blacks ($675), Whites ($881), and Asians ($1,022).

These data are from the Current Population Survey and are not seasonally adjusted. The median is the midpoint in a given earnings distribution, with half of workers having earnings above the median and the other half having earnings below the median. People whose ethnicity is identified as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race. To learn more, see “Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers: Fourth Quarter 2016” (HTML) (PDF).

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Median weekly earnings were $849 in the fourth quarter of 2016 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/median-weekly-earnings-were-849-in-the-fourth-quarter-of-2016.htm (visited March 29, 2024).

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