Second Quarter — 1996-07-18

Median weekly earnings of the nation's 91.0 million full-time wage and salary workers were $486 in the second quarter of 1996, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. This figure was 2.3 percent higher than in the second quarter of 1995; the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) rose by 2.9 percent over the same period. Data on usual 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 explanatory note.) Highlights from the second-quarter data are: ---Median weekly earnings for women who worked full time were $414, or 74.7 percent of the $554 for men. Among whites, women earned 73.5 percent of what men earned. The female-male ratio was higher among blacks (85.9 percent) and Hispanics (89.4 percent).