See statewide and county wage rates over the last 10 years. This data includes both averages and median pay rates and sets adjusted for inflation.
Latest report
About the data
By looking at wage numbers in more than one way, you can get a sense of typical wages for Washingtonians over time.
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The average wage rate is equal to the total of the unique job wage rates divided by the number of wage rates in the distribution of wages. If you take the total dollars per hour earned by workers then divide it by the number of jobs, you get the average hourly wage.
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The median wage rate is the exact middle of the hourly wage rate distribution. If you line up everyone’s wages from lowest to highest, the median wage is the one right in the middle. Half of the wage rates are higher than the median and half are below the median.
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Adjusting for inflation provides a different view that can help you understand how workers’ earnings are keeping up with their expenses.
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Workers included in this data worked 30 or more hours per week and earned at least the minimum wage rate for the wage record’s year.
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Hourly wage rates are based on quarterly wage records. The rate comes from total quarterly wages divided by total hours worked in the quarter.
Sources and calculations
We used the Employer Cost Index to convert nominal wages to constant-dollar (2024) wages.
Wage records from unemployment insurance (UI) tax reporting
Employers file quarterly unemployment insurance tax reports that include wage records for every job covered by UI. These records list the employer, the worker, the hours worked and the wages earned for each job during the quarter.
Each job a worker holds is counted separately, even if the worker has multiple jobs with different employers or at different locations in the same quarter. Federal jobs are not included in this dataset.
Employment location data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW)
We use QCEW data to identify where each job is located. QCEW assigns a job’s location based on the employer’s worksite, not where the worker lives.
How we combine the two datasets
We match employers across the UI wage records and the QCEW data to attach a worksite location to each job.
Note that, because these datasets use different screening rules and calculation methods, the statistics in this report will not match the QCEW figures published elsewhere.