Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers for Q2
Median weekly earnings of the nation’s 121.5 million full-time wage and salary workers were $1,196 in the second quarter of 2025 (not seasonally adjusted), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This was 4.6 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 2.4 percent in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) over the same period.
Data on usual weekly 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 Technical Note in this news release.) Data shown in this news release are not seasonally adjusted unless otherwise specified.
Highlights from the second-quarter data:
• Median weekly earnings of full-time workers were $1,196 in the second quarter of 2025. Women had median weekly earnings of $1,078, or 81.1 percent of the $1,330 median for men. (See table 2.)
• The women’s-to-men’s earnings ratio varied by race and ethnicity. White women earned 81.1 percent as much as their male counterparts, compared with 89.5 percent for Black women, 77.5 percent for Asian women, and 87.6 percent for Hispanic women. (See table 2.)
• Among the major race and ethnicity groups, median earnings of Hispanics who worked full time ($947) were lower than those of Blacks ($991), Whites ($1,225), and Asians ($1,553). By sex, median weekly earnings for Black men were $1,053, or 77.6 percent of the median for White men ($1,357). Median earnings for Hispanic men were $1,005, or 74.1 percent of the median for White men. The differences were smaller among women, as Black women’s median earnings were $942, or 85.6 percent of those for White women ($1,100), and earnings for Hispanic women were $880, or 80.0 percent of those for White women. Earnings of Asian men ($1,759) and women ($1,363) were higher than those of their White counterparts. (See table 2.)
• By age, usual weekly earnings were highest for men ages 35 to 54: median weekly earnings were $1,502 for men ages 35 to 44 and $1,520 for men ages 45 to 54. Among women, usual weekly earnings were also highest for workers ages 35 to 54: median weekly earnings were $1,190 for women ages 35 to 44 and $1,189 for women ages 45 to 54. Men and women ages 16 to 24 had the lowest median weekly earnings, $797 and $712, respectively. Men’s and women’s earnings were closer among younger workers than older workers; for example, women ages 16 to 24 earned 89.3 percent as much as men in the same age group, while the women’s-to-men’s earnings ratio was 78.2 percent for those age 55 and over. (See table 3.)
• Among the major occupational groups, people employed full time in management, professional, and related occupations had the highest median weekly earnings—$1,907 for men and $1,429 for women. People employed in service occupations earned the least—$882 for men and $706 for women. (See table 4.)
• By educational attainment, full-time workers age 25 and over without a high school diploma had median weekly earnings of $750, high school graduates (no college) had earnings of $960, and those holding at least a bachelor’s degree had earnings of $1,732. Among college graduates with advanced degrees (master’s, professional, and doctoral degrees), the highest earning 10 percent of male workers made $5,346 or more per week, and their female counterparts made $3,484 or more. (See table 5.)
• Seasonally adjusted median weekly earnings were $1,206 in the second quarter of 2025, little changed from the previous quarter. (See table 1.)