1998 Average Annual Pay by State and Industry — 1999-12-15

The average annual pay of all workers covered by state and federal unemployment insurance (UI) programs rose 5.1 percent to $31,908 in 1998, according to preliminary data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor. This compares with a 4.9 percent rise in 1997 and represents the fifth consecutive increase in the rate of average annual pay growth. The annual pay of private industry workers, comprising 84.6 percent of the nation's employment, grew 5.5 percent in 1998, up from the 5.2 percent increase observed in 1997. By comparison, annual pay for government workers rose 3.2 percent in 1998, down from 3.4 percent in 1997. (New Jersey data were not available for the third and fourth quarters of 1998 and therefore are not shown in this release. Totals for the United States were calculated using estimated data for New Jersey.) Pay growth for U.S.