Median weekly earnings for men and women in fourth quarter 2010

Men who were employed full time in management, professional, and related occupations in fourth quarter 2010 had the highest median weekly earnings, $1,267, compared with $937 for women in those occupations. Men and women who worked in service jobs earned the least, $585 and $421, respectively.

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Across all occupations, women who usually worked full time had median weekly earnings of $679 in the fourth quarter of 2010, or 81.8 percent of the $830 median for men. The female-to-male earnings ratio varied by race and ethnicity. White women earned 81.1 percent of their male counterparts, compared with black (96.2 percent), Asian (75.9 percent), and Hispanic women (89.9 percent).

Among the major race and ethnicity groups, median weekly earnings for black men working at full-time jobs were $629 per week in the fourth quarter of 2010, or 73.4 percent of the median for white men ($857). The difference was less among women, as black women's median earnings ($605) were 87.1 percent of those for white women ($695). Overall, median earnings of Hispanics who worked full time ($539) were lower than those of blacks ($614), whites ($772), and Asians ($828).

Overall, median weekly earnings of the Nation's 100.1 million full-time wage and salary workers were $752 in the fourth quarter of 2010. This was 0.5 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 1.3 percent in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) over the same period.

These data on earnings are from by the Current Population Survey. To learn more, see "Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers: Fourth Quarter 2010" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-11-0062.