Median weekly earnings by educational attainment, first quarter 2025

Median weekly earnings of the nation’s 110.8 million full-time wage and salary workers age 25 and over were $1,258 in the first quarter of 2025. This was 5.7 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 2.7 percent in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) over the same period. At each level of educational attainment, workers’ weekly earnings were around double what they were 25 years earlier, in the first quarter of 2000.

In the first quarter of 2025, full-time workers age 25 and over without a high school diploma had median weekly earnings of $743, compared with $718 the previous year. High school graduates with no college education had earnings of $953, up from $901 the prior year.

Those with some college or an associate degree had median weekly earnings of $1,096, compared with $1,027 the previous year. College graduates holding at least a bachelor's degree had median weekly earnings of $1,754, up from $1,680 a year earlier. 

These data are from the Current Population Survey and are not seasonally adjusted. For more information, see “Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers: First Quarter 2025” and more charts of usual weekly earnings data. Full-time workers usually work 35 hours or more per week at their sole or main job. The median is the midpoint in the earnings distribution; half of workers earn more than the median and half earn less.