This report looks at the distribution of earnings by occupation for all workers and separately for men and women as reported on the Census 2000 long form. Earnings include wages, salaries, and selfemployment income (see Text Box: What is “Earnings”? for more details). Whereas income questions have been asked on the decennial census only since 1940, occupation questions have been asked since 1850. Census 2000 classified occupations into 509 categories, including four special codes for uniquely military occupations, based on the 2000 Standard Occupational Classification which contains 821 detailed occupations (see Text Box: What is the Standard Occupational Classification?).

It is not easy to describe the earnings distribution thoroughly. This report focuses on two threads to ease explication — median earnings (earnings at the 50th percentile) and earnings dispersion (as measured by the ratio of earnings at the 90th percentile to earnings at the 10th percentile) — for all year-round, full-time (YRFT) workers by selected characteristics and across occupations.