Third Quarter — 2026-10-21

Median weekly earnings of the nation's 122.2 million full-time wage and salary workers were $1,232 in the third quarter of 2026 (not seasonally adjusted), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This was 1.5 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 3.5 percent in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) over the same period. Data on usual weekly earnings are collected as part of the Current Population Survey, a nationwide sample survey of households in which respondents are asked, among other things, how much each wage and salary worker usually earns. (See the Technical Note in this news release.) Data shown in this news release are not seasonally adjusted unless otherwise specified. --Median weekly earnings of full-time workers were $1,232 in the third quarter of 2026. Women had median weekly earnings of $1,127, or 83.4 percent of the $1,352 median for men. (See table 2.) --The women's-to-men's earnings ratio varied by race and ethnicity.