General Information: (312) 353-1880 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Paul LaPorte Friday, June 15, 2007
http://www.bls.gov/ro5
AVERAGE WEEKLY WAGES IN MINNESOTA: THIRD QUARTER 2006
The average weekly wage in Olmsted County increased 2.7 percent
from the third quarter of 2005 to the third quarter of 2006, the
largest advance among Minnesota's seven largest counties, according
to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor.
Wages in Stearns County increased 1.1 percent joining Olmsted County
as the only two large counties in the State, those with 75,000 or
more jobs (as measured by 2005 annual average employment), to record
over-the-year wage growth. The wage growth in these two counties was
greater than the 0.9 percent national average rate. Hennepin County,
the State's largest county based on employment, had the highest
average weekly wage, $982; Olmsted County followed with a wage of
$880; then Ramsey County, averaging $851. (See table A.) Regional
Commissioner Jay A. Mousa stated that the weekly wages in these three
counties exceeded the $784 national average.
County Wage levels
In Hennepin County, wages were $198, or 25.3 percent above the
national average, ranking it 26th among the 325 largest counties in
the U.S. Olmsted and Ramsey Counties, with wages $96 and $67,
respectively, above that for the nation, ranked 56th and 67th,
respectively. All three counties were in the top quarter of the
nationwide ranking by wage level.
At the other end of the wage spectrum, Stearns and St. Louis
Counties reported the lowest average weekly wages in the State, $632
and $641, respectively, ranking them 291st and 281st. Both of these
Minnesota counties had wages levels in the bottom quartile of the
national ranking.
Across the country, average weekly wages were higher than the
national average in 111 of the largest 325 U.S. counties. New York
County, N.Y., held the top position among the large counties with an
average weekly wage of $1,421. Santa Clara, Calif., was second with
an average wage of $1,414, followed by Arlington, Va. ($1,323),
Washington, D.C. ($1,307), and San Mateo, Calif. ($1,278).
Nationwide there were 212 counties with an average weekly wage
below the national average in the third quarter of 2006. The lowest
average weekly wage was reported in Cameron County, Texas ($493),
followed by the counties of Hidalgo, Texas ($514), Horry, S.C.
($517), Webb, Texas ($525), and Yakima, Wash. ($537).
County Wage Changes
As noted, only two of Minnesota's seven largest counties
recorded over-the-year wage growth, both doing so at a pace greater
than the national average increase of 0.9 percent. Olmsted County's
2.7-percent increase ranked 42nd in the nation. (See table A.)
Stearns County's 1.1-percent increase ranked 120th among the 325
large counties nationwide. The State's five remaining large
counties-Anoka, Hennepin, Ramsey, St. Louis, and Dakota, experienced
wage declines of between 0.5 and 2.6 percent over the year.
Among the largest counties, Kent, R.I. led the nation in growth
in average weekly wages, with an increase of 18.4 percent from the
third quarter of 2005. Orleans, La., was second with growth of 16.2
percent, followed by the counties of Trumbull, Ohio (12.3 percent),
and Jefferson, La., and Jefferson, Texas (10.5 percent each). The
high average weekly wage growth rate for Orleans County was related
to the disproportionate job losses in lower-paid industries due to
the impact of Hurricane Katrina. That is, the loss of low paid jobs
due to the storm boosted average wages in Orleans County.
One hundred and twelve counties experienced over-the-year
declines in average weekly wages. Passaic, N.J., had the largest
decrease, -10.2 percent, followed by the counties of Williamson,
Texas (-5.7 percent), Fort Bend, Texas (-5.0 percent), Loudoun, Va.
(-4.2 percent), and Ventura, Calif. (-4.0 percent).
Table A. Covered 1/ employment and wages in the United States and the 7 largest
counties in Minnesota, third quarter 2006 2/
------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------
| | Average weekly wage 3/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | Percent |National
| Employment |Average |National | change | ranking
Area |September 2006| weekly |ranking by | third qtr.|by percent
| (thousands ) | wage |level 4/ | 2005-06 5/| change 4/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
United States (6) | 134,988.9 $784 -- 0.9 --
|
Minnesota | 2,685.1 784 16 -.6 50
|
Anoka, Minn. | 115.7 748 151 -.5 241
Dakota, Minn. | 173.4 755 142 -2.6 304
Hennepin, Minn. | 841.4 982 26 -.9 270
Olmsted, Minn. | 90.7 880 56 2.7 42
Ramsey, Minn. | 333.3 851 67 -1.2 283
St. Louis, Minn. | 96.3 641 281 -2.4 302
Stearns, Minn. | 80.3 632 291 1.1 120
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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.
State Average Weekly Wages
At the state level, the average weekly wage in Minnesota was
$784, matching the nationwide figure, ranking 16th highest among the
50 states and the District of Columbia. (See table 1.) The five
highest wage levels in the nation were in the District of Columbia
($1,307), Connecticut ($957), Massachusetts ($950), New York ($950),
and New Jersey ($931). Average weekly wages in this group were at
least 18.8 percent higher than that for the nation, and wages in
Washington, D.C. were 66.7 percent above the national level. At the
other end of the scale, there were three states with average earnings
of less than 75 percent of the national average: South Dakota
($571), Montana ($581), and Mississippi ($585).
Average weekly wages in Minnesota decreased 0.6 percent from the
third quarter of 2005 to the third quarter 2006. Wages in the
neighboring states of Iowa and Wisconsin remained the same or changed
little over the year, while wages in North Dakota (1.4 percent) and
South Dakota (0.7 percent) increased. (See table 1.) The highest
over-the-year wage gains in the third quarter of 2006 were recorded
by Wyoming (10.0 percent), Louisiana (7.1 percent) and New Mexico
(4.0 percent). Four states had wage losses with Connecticut (-0.9
percent) experiencing the largest decline. Notably, this decline did
not change Connecticut's high wage level standing among the 50 states
and the District of Columbia. It was second in the third quarter of
2005 and was still second in the third quarter of 2006.
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 employers subject to state and federal unemployment insurance (UI)
laws. The 8.8 million employer reports cover 135.0 million full- and
part-time workers. The average weekly values are calculated by
dividing quarterly total wages by the average of the three monthly
employment levels of those covered by UI programs. The result 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 such other 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.
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
is the first to include the data on a CD for enhanced access and
usability. As a result of this change, the printed booklet contains
only selected graphic representation of QCEW data; the data tables
themselves are 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.
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 reflected in the September
QCEW employment counts and 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 third quarter of 2006. For more information, see the QCEW
section of the Katrina coverage on the BLS Web site
(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 by state, third quarter 2006 2/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| | Average weekly wage 3/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | Percent |National
| Employment |Average |National | change | ranking
Area |September 2006| weekly |ranking by |third qtr. |by percent
| (thousands) | wage |level 4/ | 2005-06 | change 4/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
United States (4) | 134,988.90 $784 - 0.9 -
|
Alabama | 1,938.9 682 34 1.9 13
Alaska | 324.8 798 13 .1 42
Arizona | 2,629.0 753 20 1.1 21
Arkansas | 1,183.9 603 46 .7 26
California | 15,655.0 892 6 .6 31
Colorado | 2,260.1 819 11 1.4 16
Connecticut | 1,680.7 957 2 -.9 51
Delaware | 424.6 850 8 3.4 6
District of Columbia | 674.2 1,307 1 3.6 5
Florida | 7,941.7 713 26 .7 26
Georgia | 4,039.3 752 21 .5 34
Hawaii | 621.2 722 24 1.1 21
Idaho | 661.2 613 45 1.3 19
Illinois | 5,883.6 831 9 .7 26
Indiana | 2,922.7 687 31 -.3 49
Iowa | 1,480.7 641 41 .0 44
Kansas | 1,347.3 662 36 .6 31
Kentucky | 1,795.1 656 38 .6 31
Louisiana | 1,835.7 683 33 7.1 2
Maine | 610.2 636 42 .8 25
Maryland | 2,545.0 858 7 .5 34
Massachusetts | 3,228.1 950 3 .3 37
Michigan | 4,278.9 790 14 .3 37
Minnesota | 2,685.1 784 16 -.6 50
Mississippi | 1,134.3 585 49 2.1 11
Missouri | 2,725.1 691 30 .0 44
Montana | 434.4 581 50 3.0 8
Nebraska | 906.9 633 43 .0 44
Nevada | 1,287.6 751 22 .0 44
New Hampshire | 634.9 774 17 .3 37
New Jersey | 3,984.7 931 5 .3 37
New Mexico | 826.1 654 39 4.0 3
New York | 8,471.7 950 3 1.1 21
North Carolina | 3,982.6 700 28 1.6 15
North Dakota | 342.2 589 48 1.4 16
Ohio | 5,350.9 725 23 .3 37
Oklahoma | 1,517.6 633 43 3.3 7
Oregon | 1,729.2 719 25 .7 26
Pennsylvania | 5,644.8 768 18 .5 34
Rhode Island | 490.8 763 19 3.7 4
South Carolina | 1,866.0 642 40 1.1 21
South Dakota | 389.6 571 51 .7 26
Tennessee | 2,761.1 698 29 1.2 20
Texas | 10,019.0 786 15 2.5 10
Utah | 1,188.7 660 37 2.0 12
Vermont | 305.8 672 35 1.4 16
Virginia | 3,649.5 815 12 -.1 48
Washington | 2,911.9 823 10 2.7 9
West Virginia | 711.8 599 47 1.7 14
Wisconsin | 2,800.8 687 31 .1 42
Wyoming | 274.1 706 27 10.0 1
Puerto Rico | 1,020.9 439 (5) 1.2 (5)
Virgin Islands | 43.2 692 (5) 12.5 (5)
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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) 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: June 18, 2007
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