{"chart":{"slug":"average-hourly-pay","title":"How much do US workers earn an hour?","takeaway":"Private-sector employees earned an average of $37.81 an hour in September 2026, 3% more than in September 2025 and 1.9 times the $20.04 of March 2006, when the series begins. That is in dollars of the day, not adjusted for inflation; the monthly jobs report compares it with prices. The average rose sharply in spring 2020 because the pandemic put mostly lower-paid people out of work, not because pay jumped.","topic":"Jobs and wages","chart_type":"line","ranking":false,"x_label":"Month","y_label":"Average hourly earnings, all private-sector employees, dollars, seasonally adjusted","unit":"dollars","points_count":247,"source":{"name":"U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics (average hourly earnings of all employees, total private)","url":"https://www.bls.gov/ces/"},"license":{"name":"Public domain (U.S. government work)","url":"https://www.bls.gov/opub/copyright-information.htm"},"data_as_of":"2026-09-30","updated_at":"2026-10-20T11:44:49.344Z","url":"https://chart.ly/charts/average-hourly-pay","api_url":"https://chart.ly/api/v1/charts/average-hourly-pay","csv_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/average-hourly-pay/data.csv","image_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/average-hourly-pay/image.png","embed_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/average-hourly-pay/embed","credit":"U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics (average hourly earnings of all employees, total private), via Chartly (https://chart.ly/charts/average-hourly-pay)","credit_html":"U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics (average hourly earnings of all employees, total private), via \u003ca href=\"https://chart.ly/charts/average-hourly-pay\"\u003eChartly\u003c/a\u003e","average_label":null,"zero_axis":true,"data":[{"label":"Mar 2006","value":20.04},{"label":"Apr 2006","value":20.17},{"label":"May 2006","value":20.13},{"label":"Jun 2006","value":20.22},{"label":"Jul 2006","value":20.29},{"label":"Aug 2006","value":20.32},{"label":"Sep 2006","value":20.4},{"label":"Oct 2006","value":20.42},{"label":"Nov 2006","value":20.49},{"label":"Dec 2006","value":20.58},{"label":"Jan 2007","value":20.59},{"label":"Feb 2007","value":20.68},{"label":"Mar 2007","value":20.72},{"label":"Apr 2007","value":20.79},{"label":"May 2007","value":20.84},{"label":"Jun 2007","value":20.95},{"label":"Jul 2007","value":20.94},{"label":"Aug 2007","value":21},{"label":"Sep 2007","value":21.04},{"label":"Oct 2007","value":21.06},{"label":"Nov 2007","value":21.12},{"label":"Dec 2007","value":21.16},{"label":"Jan 2008","value":21.19},{"label":"Feb 2008","value":21.27},{"label":"Mar 2008","value":21.36},{"label":"Apr 2008","value":21.38},{"label":"May 2008","value":21.47},{"label":"Jun 2008","value":21.52},{"label":"Jul 2008","value":21.6},{"label":"Aug 2008","value":21.7},{"label":"Sep 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Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics (average hourly earnings of all employees, total private), via Chartly (https://chart.ly/charts/average-hourly-pay)"}