General Information: (312) 353-1880 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Paul LaPorte Thursday, August 30, 2007
(312) 353-1138
www.bls.gov/ro5
www.bls.gov/cew
AVERAGE WEEKLY WAGES IN MICHIGAN: FOURTH QUARTER 2006
The average weekly wage in Ingham County increased 4.2
percent from the fourth quarter of 2005 to the fourth quarter of
2006, the largest advance among Michigan's 10 counties with
75,000 or more jobs (as measured by 2005 annual average
employment). Kalamazoo County had the second-highest wage gain
at 3.5 percent, followed by Kent County at 3.0 percent. Oakland
County had the State's highest average weekly wage, $1,030, and
was the only county to exceed the $1,000 level. (See table 1.)
Regional Commissioner Jay A. Mousa noted that weekly wages were
greater than the national average of $861 in 4 of Michigan's 10
largest counties. However, none of the 10 counties experienced
wage growth above the national increase of 4.2 percent.
County Wage Levels
The four large counties in Michigan with higher-than-average
weekly wages were Oakland ($1,030), Wayne ($969), Washtenaw
($924), and Macomb ($889). All four of these counties placed in
the top third of the nationwide ranking. The average weekly wage
in Oakland County ranked 40th among the 325 largest counties
nationwide.
The lowest average weekly wages in the State were reported
in Ottawa and Saginaw Counties at $758 and $759, respectively.
These counties placed 220th and 214th among all large counties,
in the bottom half of the national ranking.
Across the country, average weekly wages were higher than
the national average in 105 of the largest 325 U.S. counties.
New York County, N.Y., held the top position among the highest-
paid large counties with an average weekly wage of $1,781. Santa
Clara, Calif., was second with an average weekly wage of $1,569,
followed by Fairfield, Conn. ($1,515); Suffolk, Mass. ($1,481);
and San Francisco, Calif. ($1,460).
There were 219 counties with an average weekly wage below
that for the nation in the fourth quarter of 2006. The lowest
average weekly wage was reported in Cameron County, Texas ($527);
followed by the counties of Hidalgo, Texas ($542); Yakima, Wash.
($570); Webb, Texas ($571); and Horry, S.C. ($578).
County Wage Changes
Ingham County was the only one among Michigan's 10 largest
to record wage growth that was equal to the national increase of
4.2 percent from the fourth quarter 2005 to the fourth quarter
2006. (See table 1.) Ingham County's over-the-year wage gain
ranked 123rd in the nation; this placed Ingham in the top half in
growth among the nation's 325 largest counties.
Four counties in the State had wage growth under 2.0
percent: Oakland, Wayne, Saginaw, and Washtenaw. Wage increases
in these counties placed among the bottom 50 in the national
ranking. The average weekly wage in one county, Macomb (-.1
percent), changed little over the year. However, this lack of
growth ranked the county near the bottom-314th among the nation's
325 largest.
Nationally, the county of Rockingham, N.H., led the nation
in wage growth with an annual increase of 18.0 percent from the
fourth quarter of 2005. Sedgwick, Kan., and Trumbull, Ohio,
ranked second with wage gains of 14.0 percent each. Rounding out
the five counties with the fastest-growing wages were Travis
County, Tex. (10.9 percent), and Waukesha, Wis. (10.4 percent).
Across the nation, eight counties experienced over-the-year
declines in average weekly wages. New Castle, Del., had the
largest decrease (-5.7 percent), followed by the counties of
Elkhart, Ind. (-5.3 percent), Orleans, La. (-4.4 percent), York,
Pa. (-4.3 percent), and Harrison, Miss. (-2.4 percent).
State Average Weekly Wages
At the state level, the average weekly wage in Michigan was
$852, $9 below the national average, ranking 14th highest among
the 50 states and the District of Columbia. (See table 2.)
Nationally, the five highest average wage levels were in the
District of Columbia ($1,424), New York ($1,104), Connecticut
($1,101), Massachusetts ($1,072), and New Jersey ($1,055).
Average weekly wages in this group were 22 percent or more above
the national average. In contrast, four states had weekly wage
levels averaging less than 75 percent of national earnings:
South Dakota ($614), Montana ($625), Mississippi ($630) and North
Dakota ($643). (See table 2.)
Average weekly wages in Michigan increased 2.2 percent over
the year, ranking it near the bottom (48th) in growth among the
50 states and District of Columbia. The highest one-year
percentage increase in wages for the fourth quarter 2006 was
recorded by Wyoming (11.3 percent), followed by New Hampshire
(8.1 percent). The only state to record an over-the-year decline
in wages was Delaware (-4.1 percent). (See table 2.)
The employment and average weekly wage data by county are
compiled under the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages
(QCEW) program, also known as the ES-202 program. The data are
derived from reports submitted by every employer subject to
unemployment insurance (UI) laws. The 8.9 million employer
reports cover 135.9 million full- and part-time workers. The
average weekly wage is computed by dividing the total quarterly
payroll of employees covered under UI programs by the average
monthly number of these employees. This number is then divided
by 13, the number of weeks in a quarter. It is to be noted,
therefore, that over-the-year wage changes for geographic areas
may reflect shifts in the composition of employment by industry,
occupation, and other such factors as hours of work. Thus, wages
may vary among counties, metropolitan areas, or states for
reasons other than changes in the average wage level. Data for
all states, Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), counties, and
the nation are available on the BLS Web site at
http://www.bls.gov/cew/; however, data in QCEW press releases
have been revised (see Technical Note below) and may not match
the data contained on the Bureau's Web site.
site.
Additional statistics and other information
An annual bulletin, Employment and Wages, features
comprehensive information by detailed industry on establishments,
employment, and wages for the nation and all states. The 2005
edition of this bulletin contains selected data produced by
Business Employment Dynamics (BED) on job gains and losses, as
well as selected data from the fourth quarter 2005 version of
this news release. This edition will also be the first to
include the data on a CD for enhanced access and usability. As a
result of this change, the printed booklet will contain only
selected graphic representation of QCEW data; the data tables
themselves will be published exclusively in electronic formats as
PDF and fixed-width text files. Employment and Wages Annual
Averages, 2005 on CD-ROM is available for $13.00 from the United
States Government Printing Office, Superintendent of Documents.
On-line ordering information is available at
http://bookstore.gpo.gov. The 2005 bulletin is also available
in a portable document format (PDF) on the BLS Web site at
http://www.bls.gov/cew/cewbultn05.htm.
QCEW-based news releases issued by other regional offices
have been placed at one convenient Web site location,
http://www.bls.gov/cew/cewregional.htm.
Information in this release will be made available to
sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: 202-691-
5200; TDD message referral phone number: 1-800-877-8339.
For personal assistance or further information on the
Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages Program, as well as
other Bureau programs, contact the Midwest Information Office in
Chicago at (312) 353-1880 from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. CT.
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Hurricane Katrina
The employment and wages reported in this news release
reflect the impact of Hurricane Katrina and ongoing labor market
trends in certain counties. The effects of Hurricane Katrina,
which hit the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, were first apparent
in the September QCEW employment counts and in the wage totals
for the third quarter of 2005. This catastrophic storm continued
to affect monthly employment and quarterly wage totals in parts
of Louisiana and Mississippi in the fourth quarter of 2006. For
more information, see the QCEW section of the Katrina coverage on
the BLS Web site at (http://www.bls.gov/katrina/qcewquestions.htm).
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TECHNICAL NOTE
QCEW data are the sums of individual establishment records
reflecting the number of establishments that exist in a county or
industry at a point in time. For this reason, county and
industry data are not designed to be used as a time series.
The preliminary QCEW data presented in this release may
differ from data released by the individual states as well as
from the data presented on the BLS Web site. The potential
differences result from several causes. Differences between BLS
and State published data may be due to the continuing receipt,
review and editing of UI data over time. On the other hand,
differences between data in this release and the data found on
the BLS Web site are the result of adjustments made to improve
over-the-year comparisons. Specifically, these adjustments
account for administrative (noneconomic) changes such as a
correction to a previously reported location or industry
classification. Adjusting for these administrative changes
allows users to more accurately assess changes of an economic
nature (such as a firm moving from one county to another or
changing its primary economic activity) over a 12-month period.
Currently, adjusted data are available only from BLS press
releases.
# # #
Table 1. Covered 1/ employment and wages in the United States and the 10 largest
counties in Michigan, fourth quarter 2006 2/
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| | Average weekly wage 3/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | Percent |National
| Employment |Average |National | change | ranking
Area |December 2006| weekly |ranking by |fourth qtr.|by percent
| (thousands) | wage |level 4/ | 2005-06 5/| change 4/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
United States (6) | 135,933.2 $861 -- 4.2 --
|
Michigan | 4,242.5 852 14 2.2 48
|
Genesee, Mich. | 147.7 782 179 (7) --
Ingham, Mich. | 162.3 824 135 4.2 123
Kalamazoo, Mich. | 117.2 769 193 3.5 196
Kent, Mich. | 342.8 793 165 3.0 235
Macomb, Mich. | 320.5 889 89 -.1 314
Oakland, Mich. | 701.7 1,030 40 1.9 290
Ottawa, Mich. | 110.0 758 220 2.6 258
Saginaw, Mich. | 89.5 759 214 1.6 297
Washtenaw, Mich. | 196.2 924 68 1.3 301
Wayne, Mich. | 771.4 969 56 1.8 293
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(1) Includes workers covered by Unemployment Insurance (UI) and Unemployment
Compensation for Federal Employees (UCFE) programs.
(2) Data are preliminary.
(3) Average weekly wages were calculated using unrounded data.
(4) Ranking does not include the county of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
(5) Percent changes were computed from quarterly employment and pay data adjusted
for noneconomic county reclassifications.
(6) Totals for the United States do not include data for Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands.
(7) Data do not meet BLS or State agency disclosure standards.
Table 2. Covered 1/ employment and wages by state, fourth
quarter 2006 2/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| | Average weekly wage 3/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | Percent |National
| Employment |Average |National | change | ranking
Area |December2006| weekly |ranking by | fourth qtr. |by percent
| (thousands)| wage |level 4/ | 2005-06 | change 4/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
United States (4) 135,933.2 $861 - 4.2 -
Alabama 1,948.9 737 33 4.4 27
Alaska 296.2 837 17 5.3 11
Arizona 2,693.3 805 22 4.7 18
Arkansas 1,179.3 652 47 2.8 43
California 15,672.1 987 6 4.4 27
Colorado 2,283.3 877 12 5.0 15
Connecticut 1,706.3 1,101 3 2.0 50
Delaware 427.5 896 10 -4.1 51
District of Columbia 675.0 1,424 1 5.0 15
Florida 8,126.2 788 23 4.6 20
Georgia 4,090.4 812 21 2.1 49
Hawaii 632.3 762 27 3.5 38
Idaho 649.8 672 45 7.0 4
Illinois 5,899.5 928 8 4.6 20
Indiana 2,924.3 723 36 2.6 45
Iowa 1,486.3 697 40 3.7 35
Kansas 1,358.9 725 34 6.5 5
Kentucky 1,815.4 708 37 3.8 33
Louisiana 1,855.1 748 30 5.1 14
Maine 603.4 679 43 2.7 44
Maryland 2,570.5 941 7 3.4 39
Massachusetts 3,244.5 1,072 4 4.5 25
Michigan 4,242.5 852 14 2.2 48
Minnesota 2,683.1 840 16 4.0 32
Mississippi 1,140.3 630 49 2.6 45
Missouri 2,737.5 741 32 2.3 47
Montana 431.6 625 50 5.8 6
Nebraska 912.2 687 42 3.6 37
Nevada 1,285.8 817 19 5.4 10
New Hampshire 636.9 917 9 8.1 2
New Jersey 4,023.6 1,055 5 4.4 27
New Mexico 823.2 705 39 7.1 3
New York 8,643.1 1,104 2 5.3 11
North Carolina 4,054.0 751 29 4.6 20
North Dakota 341.0 643 48 4.7 18
Ohio 5,346.2 774 24 3.1 42
Oklahoma 1,536.4 679 43 5.8 6
Oregon 1,723.9 763 26 4.8 17
Pennsylvania 5,680.8 837 17 4.4 27
Rhode Island 488.4 817 19 3.8 33
South Carolina 1,886.8 688 41 3.3 41
South Dakota 387.1 614 51 4.2 31
Tennessee 2,785.2 773 25 4.6 20
Texas 10,164.2 871 13 5.8 6
Utah 1,208.0 725 34 5.5 9
Vermont 308.7 707 38 3.4 39
Virginia 3,682.9 887 11 3.7 35
Washington 2,863.7 846 15 5.2 13
West Virginia 714.3 656 46 4.6 20
Wisconsin 2,792.4 746 31 4.5 25
Wyoming 270.9 759 28 11.3 1
Puerto Rico 1,062.8 494 (5) 4.7 (5)
Virgin Islands 45.5 711 (5) 7.2 (5)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Includes workers covered by Unemployment Insurance (UI) and Unemployment
Compensation for Federal Employees (UCFE) programs.
(2) Data are preliminary.
(3) Average weekly wages were calculated using unrounded data.
(4) Totals for the United States do not include data for Puerto Rico or the Virgin
Islands.
(5) Data not included in the national ranking.
Last Modified Date: August 31, 2007
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