High school graduates who work full time had median weekly earnings of $718 in second quarter

Median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers age 25 and older were $909 in the second quarter of 2017. Full-time workers without a high school diploma had median weekly earnings of $515, compared with $718 for high school graduates (no college) and $1,189 for those with a bachelor's degree. Full-time workers with advanced degrees (professional or master's degree and above) had median weekly earnings of $1,451.

The lowest paid 10 percent of workers with advanced degrees made $719 or less per week. That was about the same as the median earnings—the 50th percentile—of high school graduates who had never attended college. Among full-time workers with advance degrees, the highest earning 10 percent—the 90th percentile—of men made $3,784 or more per week, compared with $2,610 or more for the 90th percentile of women.

These data are from the Current Population Survey and are not seasonally adjusted. For more information, see “Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers — Second Quarter 2017” (HTML) (PDF). Full-time workers are those who usually work 35 hours or more per week at their sole or principal job. The median is the midpoint in an earnings distribution; half of workers have earnings above the median and the other half have earnings below the median. The 10th percentile is the point in the earnings distribution at which 10 percent have lower earnings and 90 percent have higher earnings. The 90th percentile is the point in the earnings distribution at which 90 percent have lower earnings and 10 percent have higher earnings.