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Median weekly earnings by education, second quarter 2020

July 23, 2020

Median weekly earnings of the nation's 104.5 million full-time wage and salary workers were $1,002 in the second quarter of 2020. Full-time workers age 25 and over without a high school diploma had median weekly earnings of $630, compared with $789 for high school graduates (no college) and $1,416 for those holding at least a bachelor's degree.

 Quartiles and selected deciles of usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers 25 years and over by educational attainment, 2nd quarter 2020 averages
Educational attainment First decile First quartile Median Third quartile Ninth decile

Less than a high school diploma

$385 $491 $630 $869 $1,183

High school graduates, no college

460 596 789 1,134 1,606

Some college or associate degree

502 661 904 1,300 1,816

Bachelor's degree and higher

687 977 1,416 2,110 3,089

Among college graduates with a bachelor’s degree or higher, the highest earning 10 percent of workers earned a weekly average of $3,089.

These data are from the Current Population Survey and are not seasonally adjusted. For more information, see "Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers: Second Quarter 2020." Also see more charts of usual weekly earnings data. Full-time workers usually work 35 hours or more per week at their sole or main job. The median or 50th percentile is the midpoint in the earnings distribution; half of workers earn more than the median and half earn less. Ten percent of workers have earnings below the upper limit of the 10th percentile, and 90 percent have higher earnings. Ninety percent of workers have earnings below the upper limit of the 90th percentile and 10 percent have higher earnings.

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Median weekly earnings by education, second quarter 2020 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2020/median-weekly-earnings-by-education-second-quarter-2020.htm (visited March 28, 2024).

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