Use of ACS to Improve Occupation Earnings Estimates

Abundant resources exist to measure the expected earnings of a given occupation down to the level of a local labor market. However, none of these resources consider the well-documented positive correlation between earnings and education or the continuing gap in earnings between males and females. This article utilizes the rich data offerings of the American Community Survey to generate cross-tabulations of occupational earnings delineated by gender and education. The results reveal that earnings for the vast majority of occupations vary significantly depending upon the worker’s education. Further, we3 show that earnings for males consistently exceed those for females even when controlled for education and occupation. We provide tabulations for the nation and the largest metropolitan areas.