You can often find median or average wages for the different education attainment levels. But I wondered how the distribution of wages looked for each. I mean are they all pretty symmetrical distributions at each education level? Or might it be flatter at the lower education level and wider distribution at the higher education levels?
I pulled income levels for education level off the BLS database for
Table 5. Quartiles and selected deciles of usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by selected characteristics, quarterly averages, not seasonally adjusted
Here's the income distribution based on education level :
| 10% | 25% | Median | 75% | 90% | |
| Dropout | $15,236 | $18,616 | $24,544 | $33,020 | $47,112 |
| High school | $18,772 | $24,856 | $33,852 | $48,724 | $68,744 |
| Bachelors | $27,508 | $38,844 | $57,616 | $85,488 | $120,952 |
| Advanced | $35,360 | $49,244 | $72,228 | $104,572 | $155,116 |
And then as % of median :
| 10% | 25% | Median | 75% | 90% | |
| dropout | 62% | 76% | 100% | 135% | 192% |
| High school | 55% | 73% | 100% | 144% | 203% |
| Bachelors | 48% | 67% | 100% | 148% | 210% |
| Advanced | 49% | 68% | 100% | 145% | 215% |
Overall I would say that the income distributions don't vary a whole lot based on education level. The top 10% makes roughly double the median and the bottom makes 50-60% of the median. The bottom 10% wage level is supported by the minimum wage so that may explain why its a little higher % of median than other education levels.
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