October 20, 2005 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Median weekly earnings in 2004 varied significantly by level of education.
Among women, those with less than a high school diploma earned $334 per week, compared with $860 for those with a college degree. Among men, high school dropouts earned $446 a week, compared with $1,143 for college graduates.
These data on earnings are produced by the Current Population Survey. Earnings data in this article are median usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers. For more information see "Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2004," BLS Report 987 (PDF 196K).