1997 Average Annual Pay by State and Industry — 1999-06-23

The average annual pay of all workers covered by state and federal unemployment insurance (UI) programs was $30,336 in 1997, a 4.8 percent gain over the 1996 national average, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor. The annual pay of private industry workers, comprising 84.4 percent of the nation's employment, rose 5.1 percent in 1997, while pay for government workers rose 3.2 percent. In 1996, the increase in pay for private sector employees was 4.2 percent and for government workers, 3.1 percent. The 1997 growth in wages represented the largest annual pay gain since 1992, when wages increased 5.4 percent. (See chart 1.) Average annual pay for U.S. workers grew 45.4 percent ($9,479) from 1987 to 1997. The attached tables contain pay data for the nation, each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.