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Are You an ‘Average’ Worker?

By Jennifer Hicks

What's average, anyway?

Have you ever wanted to be average? It has it merits; you get to be smack dab in the middle on a mathematical scale. It means that half the people will make more than you and half will make less. Certainly being in the middle is better than being on the bottom.

Yet, if you're the "average" worker, you've probably noticed a few problems.

For instance, your average hourly pay last month was $15.04, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). ¹ But, to afford the average rent on an average two-bedroom apartment means you need to earn $14.66 per hour according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. This leaves you with the grand total of $.38 an hour to pay for the rest of what you need — like clothes, healthcare, and aspirin to ward of your growing headaches. Given that the average number of hours worked is declining, if you're average, you've got a mounting problem.

The state of affairs at the end of 2001 ²

The BLS has a bunch of people that crunch numbers and come up with all sorts of interesting information. Some of these numbers end up in mega-reports such as the Consumer Expenditure Survey which details what people spend and on what. Sadly, the report is so very full of numbers that they don't get published until quite a bit after the end of the year they report on. Thus in 2003, we can report on 2001. Which means we need to use an average ability to think forward and imagine to correlate 2001 numbers to the average life today.

So, in 2001, people spent a great deal of money. Not too much of a surprise given the (still) growing consumer debt, but just what was that money spent on?

In that year, the average worker earned $14.52 per hour and worked an average 33.95-hour week, therefore grossing $25,633. Not too much, is it? Especially since more than $13,000 was spent on housing.

But our average worker is fortunate. He or she lives in an average household, of course, which means there are 1.59 additional bodies to helpearn money to deal with the bills. (Hmm... are we supporting child labor or working beside a person with only .59 percent of a brain??) So, the average worker's gross income is supplemented in this average household, and the median household income— another kind of average — when all 2.59 household members pooled their earnings, amounted to $42,228. Much better than 25K and actually quite a bit of money until one looks a bit more closely.

The average worker's average household spent $39,518 that year. Before you mutter, "spendthirfts," know this. Of that spending, 84.9 percent was used on such frivolities as: housing, food, clothing, transportation, healthcare, and insurance. This left the 2.59 average household members with the grand total of $1,710 to divide among themselves for "extra" spending, maybe for things like renting a movie about how the wealthy live, or buying a book about social class theory, or...

And, if your household happened to be one headed by a foreign born average worker, your income declined 5.1 percent — 3.8 percent more than native born average workers — from the previous year.

See the problem? Declining spending power, caused by declining hours worked, and increased costs in essentials like healthcare and housing.

What can you do?

Start by determining where you fit within your industry's average. Then, you might consider moving to an area that pays a higher average wage. Of course that bring with it likely higher housing and food costs. You might want to share your home with another wage earner. Or, you may want to make your government officials aware of the problems you face.

Or, you can look here for a new job, after looking at the table below, and deciding what you want to train for next.

2001 Mean Annual Salaries

An interesting aside

In 2001, the average hourly compensation costs for production workers in manufacturing was $20.32.

This includes the actual pay rate, plus benefits, including the requisite taxes the employer pays for that employee.

In Mexico, it was $2.34; in Brazil, $3.02; and in Taiwan, $5.70. Makes one wonder... which is the subject of the next piece in the series: "Where Are the Jobs?"

¹ Each month, the BLS polls a sample of 400,000 business establishments nationwide. Typically they poll larger organizations, who, in general, pay employees more. This is the info used to arrive at the average hourly wage.

² BLS has a great deal of current data. But for average cost of living and wage comparisons, 2001 was the most completely updated time period.

Note: In addition the following publications were used to gather data: Money Income in 2001 by the U.S. Census; various BLS data, searchable at http://www.bls.gov/data/; the National Compensation Survey, and the Consumer Expenditure Survey.

 

Average Hourly Earnings By Industry July 2003 by Jennifer Hicks, Director of Online Content Average Hourly Earnings By Industry Industry Avg. Hourly Earnings (July 2003) Industry Avg. Hourly Earnings (July 2003) Construction $18.98 Other services $14.00 Educational and health services   $15.73 Professional and business services $17.22 Financial $17.38 Retail trade $11.97 Goods-producing $16.82 Services $15.06 Information technology $21.21 Trade, transportation, and utilities $14.41 Leisure and hospitality $25.40 Transportation and warehousing $16.43 Manufacturing $15.74 Utilities $24.67 Natural resources and mining $17.6 Wholesale trade $17.36 source: Bureau of Labor Statistics