Median weekly earnings, fourth quarter 2012

Median weekly earnings of the nation's 103.8 million full-time wage and salary workers were $775 in the fourth quarter of 2012 (not seasonally adjusted), 1.4 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 1.9 percent in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) over the same period.

Women who usually worked full time had median weekly earnings of $692, or 79.1 percent of the $875 median for men. The female-to-male earnings ratio varied by race and ethnicity. White women earned 79.6 percent as much as their male counterparts, compared with black (87.4 percent), Hispanic (86.6 percent), and Asian women (71.6 percent).

Among the major race and ethnicity groups, median weekly earnings for black men working at full-time jobs were $680 per week, or 76.0 percent of the median for white men ($895). The difference was less among women, as black women's median earnings ($594) were 83.4 percent of those for white women ($712). Overall, median earnings of Hispanics who worked full time ($571) were lower than those of blacks ($615), whites ($802), and Asians ($910).

These earnings data are produced by the Current Population Survey. For more information, see "Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers — Fourth Quarter 2012" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-13-0060. Full-time workers are those who usually work 35 hours or more per week at their sole or principal job. Persons whose ethnicity is identified as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race.