NC Today and What It Means: Total Private Average Weekly Earnings

The NC Today dashboard serves as a monthly update on statewide labor market and economic conditions. But what do the numbers mean? Using the March 2022 update, this first blog post in a series of four provides context to statewide total private average weekly earnings.

Author: Chi Wong

Source: Current Employment Statistics (CES). Inflation adjustment comes from the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

The total private average weekly earnings amount for North Carolina is reported as a rough measure of North Carolinians’ personal earned income. After adjusting for inflation and seasonality, preliminary private average weekly earnings in March 2022 were $1,028.16. This number has slowly declined since August 2021, and is slightly lower than one year ago (March 2021, where it was at $1029.58). This earnings amount is still higher than the pre-pandemic amount from two years ago (February 2020, when it was $992.08).

The next entry in this series will provide similar background to residential building permits as of the March 2022 update.

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