Earnings in US – The more you learn, the more you earn

The data, from the 2015 American Community Survey, continue to show that the more you learn, the more you earn. In 2015, median earnings for adult workers without a high school diploma were approximately $21,000 compared with $67,000 for those with a graduate degree. Workers with “some college” or an associate’s degree—the most common level of educational attainment tracked in the survey—earned about half the typical salary for workers with a graduate degree, at roughly $34,000.

Despite earnings growth, each of these groups had lower median earnings in 2015 than before the recession in 2007. The decline was steepest for middle-skilled workers, whose inflation-adjusted median earnings were down more than 8 percent from their pre-recession level. Declines were more modest for other groups, from 6 percent for workers with only a high school diploma, to 4 percent for those with a bachelor’s or graduate degree. All groups experienced gains from 2014 to 2015, but middle-skilled workers’ earnings had previously dropped more steeply and for a longer period of time.

via Middle-skilled workers still making up for lost ground on earnings | Brookings Institution