Weekly earnings by educational attainment in the second quarter of 2014

Median weekly earnings of the nation's 106.6 million full-time wage and salary workers were $780 in the second quarter of 2014 (not seasonally adjusted). This was essentially unchanged from a year earlier, compared with a gain of 2.1 percent in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers over the same period. Full-time workers age 25 and older earned a median of $831 per week in the second quarter of 2014, with large differences in earnings among educational attainment categories.

 

Full-time workers age 25 and older without a high school diploma had median weekly earnings of $492, compared with $666 for high school graduates with no college experience. Workers whose highest level of education was a bachelor's degree had median earnings of $1,098. Full-time workers with advanced degrees (professional or master's degree and above) had a median of $1,377.

The highest-earning 10 percent of workers with a bachelor’s degree made $2,399 or more per week, more than four times the level of the lowest-earning 10 percent of workers with a bachelor’s degree ($520 or less).

These data are from the Current Population Survey. For more information, see "Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers — Second Quarter 2014" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL‑14‑1347. Full-time workers are those who usually work 35 hours or more per week at their sole or principal job. Ten percent of all full-time wage and salary workers earn less than the upper limit of the first decile; 50 percent earn less than the upper limit of the median or fifth decile; 90 percent earn less than the upper limit of the ninth decile.