October 19, 2009 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Change in real weekly earnings, September 2009

Real average weekly earnings fell 0.4 percent from August to September, after seasonal adjustment.

Composition of change in real earnings of production and nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls, September 2009
[Chart data]

The decline stemmed from a decrease in average weekly hours of -0.3 percent, and an increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) of 0.2 percent, outpacing the increase in average hourly earnings of 0.1 percent.

Since reaching a high point in December 2008, real average weekly earnings have fallen by 1.9 percent.

These earnings data are from the Current Employment Statistics Program. These data are for production and nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls. Earnings data are preliminary and subject to revision. Find out more in "Real Earnings—September 2009" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL 09-1240.

 

 

Of Interest: African American History Month

This Spotlight on Statistics provides an economic snapshot of African Americans in the United States today.
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