Fact check: Have US workers gained $500 in wages this year?

According to President Donald Trump, his economic policies already have an impact on US citizens.

During a Cabinet meeting on August 26th, Trump stated that the average American worker has already seen a $500 wage increase this year.

Trump’s White House picked data that favors higher earnings growth. A larger sample size, which reflects a smaller increase, is what experts favor.

How a $500 pay raise was calculated by the White House

A spokesperson for the White House’s press office pointed us to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures for&nbsp, the seasonally adjusted median weekly earnings for full-time and salaried employees.

According to this data, the median weekly earnings increased from $ 1,185 in the fourth quarter of 2024 to $ 1,206 in the second quarter of 2025, which is in line with Trump’s second term in office.

We multiplied those figures by 26 to determine how much a typical worker gained over the course of the half-year because those figures represent weekly earnings. A total wage increase of $546 is obtained when multiplied by 26 weeks. Part-time employees, who make up about a quarter of the workforce, are not included in this measure, nor are they considered to be inflationary.

Other measures are deemed more reliable by experts as being reliable.

According to economists, the dataset chosen by the White House isn’t as trustworthy as a different set, and the more trustworthy study shows a smaller wage increase.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases a monthly dataset called the average weekly earnings of all private sector employees.

This figure indicates a pay increase of roughly $ 121 over the first six months of 2025. That’s roughly one-third of Trump’s statement.

This is the preferred method of measuring wages, according to several economists, because it is based on the Current Employment Statistics program, which examines 121, 000 businesses and government agencies, representing roughly 631, 000 workites, according to several experts. In contrast, the White House’s data is analyzed using the Current Population Survey, which includes 60 000 eligible households.

The center-right American Action Forum president, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said, “I always trust the payroll series more.

The liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research cofounder, Dean Baker, agrees, claiming that the results of the smaller household survey are “extremely erratic.”

Additionally, this dataset indicates that President Joe Biden’s salary increased by $884 during his most recent two years. This undermines the notion that Trump has made extraordinary gains.

Factoring inflation into the equation

Both of these measures overestimate worker gains because they do not take inflation into account.

Another statistic, from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, uses the smaller sample-size household survey and takes inflation into account. It is the median usual weekly inflation-adjusted earnings for full-time and salaried employees, 16 years and over.

Between the final quarter of 2024 and the second quarter of 2025, workers’ pay increased by $1 per week in accordance with this metric.

After inflation, this adds up to a $ 26 pay increase multiplied by 26 weeks.

Our decision

Trump claimed that the typical American worker has already seen a $500 wage increase this year.

According to wage data, the median wage for full-time employees increased by a cumulative $546 during the first two years of 2025, according to the White House.

A slightly higher increase in the average US worker’s pay over that time period, or $121 over six months, is revealed in a different set of statistics, which economists believe is more accurate because it was gathered from a much larger sample that included full- and part-time workers and has less volatility.

When inflation is taken into account, full-time employees’ take-home pay increased by about $ 26 in the first six months of 2025, despite inflation.