Rachel Sadon
Courtesy of the George Mason University Center for Regional Analysis.
On average, Washingtonians are finally starting to see their earnings rise after several years of declines. The average wage last year in D.C. was $85,846, an increase of 1.7 percent over 2013 and the first time it had gone up since 2011.
That trend also held true for the region at large, according to a report from the George Mason University Center for Regional Analysis that analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average wage in 2014 when including D.C., Northern Virginia, and the Maryland suburbs was $69,645, an increase of 0.5 percent from 2013.
Despite the upward turn, earnings are still a way off from 2010 when D.C.’s average wage was more than $87,000 and the entire region’s was over $71,000. And the Washington area’s growth also trails that of the 15 largest employment regions. At 2.9 percent, Seattle leads the pack, with Boston and Houston next at 2.4 percent each.
Courtesy of the George Mason University Center for Regional Analysis.
Nonetheless, D.C. still has the third-highest wages among those 15 metro areas. Only San Franciscans, at $78,854, and New Yorkers, at $71,224, earn more on average, according to the report’s authors.
Much of the wage increase’s last year came from the federal sector, where wages were up 4.7 percent in D.C., 1.7 percent in the Maryland suburbs, and 2.8 percent in Northern Virginia. Meanwhile, city employees in the District saw a decline in their average wages of 4.2 percent and wages in Northern Virginia’s private sector fell 0.6 percent (in fact, Northern Virginia was the only part of the region that didn’t see an overall increase in average wages, falling 0.4 percent from 2013).
Courtesy of the George Mason University Center for Regional Analysis.
See below for the full report.
