Real median weekly earnings

What the worker in the exact middle of the full-time pay distribution takes home in a week, after inflation.

What it measures

Usual weekly earnings, before taxes, of full-time wage and salary workers aged 16 and over, adjusted for consumer prices so that different decades are in comparable dollars.

How it is measured

Earnings questions asked of one quarter of the Current Population Survey sample each month, published quarterly by the BLS and deflated by the CPI.

Reading it over a presidential term

A median, not an average: very high earners do not pull it up. The series begins in 1979, so terms that ended before then have no value for this metric and will be dropped or renormalized depending on your “missing metric” setting.

What it leaves out

Full-time workers only, and earnings only — no benefits, no self-employment, no household income. Who is employed changes the median on its own: if low-paid jobs disappear first in a downturn, the median of those still working can rise while no one gets a raise.

Chart this series · See it by president · Download the data · The source at FRED