General Information: (312) 353-1880 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Paul LaPorte Tuesday, September 11, 2007
http://www.bls.gov/ro5
http://www.bls.gov/cew
AVERAGE WEEKLY WAGES IN NEBRASKA: FOURTH QUARTER 2006
The average weekly wage in Douglas County increased 3.0 percent
from the fourth quarter of 2005 to the fourth quarter of 2006, the
larger advance among Nebraska's two counties with 75,000 or more jobs
(as measured by 2005 annual average employment). The second county,
Lancaster, registered wage growth of 2.4 percent over the year. Wage
increases in both of these counties, however, fell below the national
average of 4.2 percent. (See table 1.) Regional Commissioner Jay A.
Mousa noted that Douglas and Lancaster Counties also had wage levels
that were lower than the $861 average for the nation in the fourth
quarter of 2006. For the State as a whole, the average weekly wage
was 20.2 percent below the U.S. wage level.
County Wage Levels
With an average weekly wage of $814, Douglas County ranked 149th
highest among the nation's 325 large counties. Lancaster County's
average weekly wage of $677 ranked 287th. Although Nebraska's two
large counties were among 219 nationwide that had average weekly
wages below that for the nation, only Lancaster County ranked in the
bottom quartile.
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 large counties with an
average weekly wage of $1,781. Santa Clara, Calif., was second with
an average wage of $1,569, followed by Fairfield, Conn. ($1,515),
Suffolk, Mass. ($1,481), and San Francisco, Calif. ($1,460).
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
As mentioned earlier, neither of Nebraska's two large counties
recorded wage growth above the nationwide increase of 4.2 percent.
With a wage gain of 3.0 percent Douglas County ranked 235th highest
among the nation's 325 largest counties, and Lancaster County's 2.4-
percent increase ranked 269th. Both counties were in the bottom
third of the national ranking.
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, both 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 Nebraska was
$687, $174 below that for the nation, ranking 42nd among the 50
states and the District of Columbia. (See table 2.) Across the
country, 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 Nebraska increased 3.6 percent from the
fourth quarter of 2005, ranking it 37th among the 50 states and
District of Columbia. The highest over-the-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.
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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).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
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 2 largest
counties in Nebraska, 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 --
| |
Nebraska | 912.2 | 687 42 3.6 37
| |
Douglas, Neb. | 318.4 | 814 149 3.0 235
Lancaster, Neb. | 155.9 | 677 287 2.4 269
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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. (Rank among 325 counties)
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.
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: September 11, 2007
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