Median Weekly Earnings Decline

In yesterday's Daily Fiscal Policy Report, we noted that real average weekly earnings in March were up compared to February, while they were down compared to March, 2007. Today, the BLS released data on real median weekly earnings, which, like average weekly earnings, have declined since a year ago. Median weekly earnings of the nation's 106.5 million full-time wage and salary workers were $719 in the first quarter of 2008, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. This was 3.8 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 4.1 percent in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) over the same period.
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