Dear Yahoo!: What is the average salary in the United States?
Bob New Bern, North Carolina
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Dear Bob: In our quest to find your answer, we uncovered almost as many ways to figure salaries as there are workers in the U.S. Most authorities report "average income," which can include not just salary, but interest income, retirement benefits, and other sources of money as well.
Narrowing our search to "salary," we found that the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the average annual wages in the U.S. as $36,764 for 2002. More recently, the White House reports that the average hourly earnings of nonsupervisory workers was $15.54 in March 2004. The White House also gets its information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which states that in that same month, the average wage for workers in the private sector was around $520 a week.
As expected, CEOs make a lot more than average Joes. According to Bloomberg, the average pay for CEOs running $5 billion companies for the three years ending in 2002 hit $12 million.
If you're looking for the state with the highest average salary, PayScale's salary survey data indicates you might want to head to New York, which is also home to the largest average salary in Major League Baseball. Lest you think that all players' salaries climb year after year, USA Today reports that in 2004, the average salary of players dropped for the first time in 10 years.