{"id":282406,"date":"2026-09-09T19:08:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T19:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/282406\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T19:08:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T19:08:17","slug":"labor-force-snapshots-pennsylvania-harrisburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/282406\/","title":{"rendered":"Labor Force Snapshots: Pennsylvania | Harrisburg"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Labor day has come and gone, honoring the Pennsylvanians who keep setting those 6am alarms and have perfected their customer service voice. Here\u2019s four numbers that give a snapshot of the workforce in the Commonwealth in 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">1. Roughly 6.7 million Pennsylvanians are in the labor force. That includes those who are working and those actively looking for a job. It accounts for just over half of the state\u2019s 13 million population.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">2. There\u2019s roughly 6.2 million non farm jobs in the state, as of July. Pennsylvania\u2019s Department of Labor and Industry <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pa.gov\/agencies\/dli\/newsroom\/shapiro-administration-celebrates-scranton-students-with-disabil\/pennsylvania-unemployment-rate-falls-to-3-9-percent-now-under-4-\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">divides those available jobs<\/a> into 11 categories, pictured below. The industries with the most employment are education and health services.<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"Labor Force in Pennsylvania\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full default\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>                                    By Kara Jeffers<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">3. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pa.gov\/content\/dam\/copapwp-pagov\/en\/dli\/documents\/cwia\/products\/occupational-wages\/pa_ow.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">median annual wage<\/a> in Pennsylvania is $49,690. That calculation includes the range for everyone from preschool teachers ($36,050 median annual wage) to CEOs ($232,560 median annual wage). This statistic is unique from the median household income, which the <a href=\"https:\/\/data.census.gov\/profile\/Pennsylvania?g=040XX00US42\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Census Bureau<\/a> puts at $77,545 for the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A <a href=\"https:\/\/wallethub.com\/edu\/states-where-people-have-the-highest-income\/136995\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WalletHub study<\/a> published this summer says top 5% earners in Pennsylvania average $475,515 in annual income while the bottom 20% of earners in the state average $16,529.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">4. How far will a paycheck carry a Pennsylvanian? The United Way, an organization that works to stabilize household finances, calculates how much people need in different regions to make ends meet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A \u201csurvival budget\u201d in Erie County is $29,916 for a single adult, and $79,464 for a family of four with a preschooler and toddler.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Comparatively, a \u201csurvival budget\u201d in Tioga County is $27,204 for a single adult, and $73,800 for the same family of four.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.unitedforalice.org\/the-cost-of-basics\/pennsylvania\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Click this link<\/a> to explore the cost of living budgets in your county, as well as suggestions for a \u201cstability budget\u201d and tools for managing finances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labor day has come and gone, honoring the Pennsylvanians who keep setting those 6am alarms and have perfected&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2288,136,138,137,37,5929],"class_list":["post-282406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-bureau","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-harrisburg","tag-pennsylvania-capitol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}