What are mean wages? What are median wages?
The OES program produces estimates of wages by occupation, i.e., the wages paid to wage or salary employees in a given occupation in the U.S., in a particular State, or in a particular industry. These occupational wage estimates are either estimates of mean wages or percentiles, such as the median wage. • A mean wage is an average wage. An occupational mean wage estimate is calculated by summing the wages of all the employees in a given occupation and then dividing the total wages by the number of employees. • A percentile wage is a boundary. For example, an occupational median wage (50th percentile) estimate is the boundary between the highest paid 50 percent and the lowest paid 50 percent of workers in that occupation. Half of the workers in a given occupation earn more than the median wage, and half the workers earn less than the median wage. For more information, see the page on percentiles.
