Charts are keyboard readable: focus a chart, then use the left and right arrow keys to step one reading at a time, hold Shift to step a year (ten readings on a yearly chart), Home and End for the first and last month, Escape to let go. In the timeline, tab to Window Start or Window End and use the arrow keys to move it.
Real Weekly Wages
About This Indicator
What Are Real Wages?
Median weekly pay of full-time workers, excluding benefits, in 1982 to 1984 dollars, hence the small figures. Quarterly since 1979; the last quarter of 2025, lost to the federal shutdown, is estimated.
Why Do They Matter?
A raise below inflation is a pay cut in what money buys. By this measure the typical full-time paycheck bought about the same in 2014 as in 1979. The price index behind it is never revised, so the 1979 figure still rests on how prices were measured in 1979.
Can Politics Influence Them?
Minimum wage law, labor rules, and how tight the job market runs all feed in. Income tax cuts do not: the series counts pay before taxes.
Key Idea
The median full-time worker is not the same person each year: when low-paid workers lose jobs, the median of those still working rises, which is why this line jumped 7% in spring 2020, and why it can sag as they are hired back.
Scored: Faster Growth Ranks Better
Source: BLS. LES1252881600.
Loading the dataset…