The official U.S. poverty measure uses money income before taxes and excludes noncash benefits such as SNAP, public housing, and Medicaid.
In BLS employee-benefit statistics, “access” means a benefit plan is available for an employee to use. “Participation” means the employee is actually participating under the plan’s rules. A worker can therefore have access to a retirement p
BLS average hourly earnings from the payroll survey are calculated from gross payroll divided by hours. They do not include employer-paid benefits such as health insurance or retirement contributions, and they exclude items including irregu
BLS “real earnings” are average hourly or weekly earnings adjusted for inflation using a Consumer Price Index. BLS explicitly notes that real-earnings data cannot by themselves measure changes in living standards, which also depend on facto
GDP is the market value of goods and services produced in an economy. GDP per capita is GDP divided by population. It is a measure of production per person, not the amount of income received by the average person or household.
An average (mean) adds everyone’s earnings and divides by the number of workers. A small number of very high earners can therefore pull the average upward. The median is different: it is the midpoint, with half of workers above it and half
Median earnings are the midpoint of an earnings distribution: half of workers earn more and half earn less.
BLS usual weekly earnings are wage-and-salary earnings before taxes and deductions. They do not include the cash value of benefits such as employer-provided health insurance.
For multiple jobholders, BLS Current Population Survey usual-weekly-earnings data reflect earnings at the person’s main job, not combined earnings from every job.
BLS usual weekly earnings are reported before taxes and other deductions. BEA separately defines disposable personal income as personal income after personal current taxes.
