“In 2012, women who were full-time wage and salary workers had median usual weekly earnings of $691. On average in 2012, women made about 81 percent of the median earnings of male full-time wage and salary workers ($854). In 1979, the first year for which comparable earnings data are available, women earned 62 percent of  what men earned. This report presents data highlights and statistical tables of earnings data from the Current Population Survey  (CPS), a national monthly survey of approximately 60,000  households conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Information on  earnings is collected from one-fourth of the CPS sample each month. It is important to note that the comparisons  of earnings in this report are on a broad level and do  not control for many factors that can be significant in  explaining earnings differences. For a detailed description  of the source of the data and an explanation of the concepts  and definitions used in this report, see the accompanying technical notes section.”