President Donald Trump said US workers are already benefitting from his economic policies.

“The average American worker has already seen a $500 wage increase this year,” Trump said during an August 26 Cabinet meeting.

Trump’s White House cherry-picked data that favours a higher earnings gain. Experts prefer a different measure, based on a larger sample size, that shows a smaller increase.

How the White House calculated a $500 pay bump

When we asked the White House press office for Trump’s data source, a spokesperson pointed us to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures for median usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers, seasonally adjusted.

This data shows that median weekly earnings rose from $1,185 in the fourth quarter of 2024 to $1,206 in the second quarter of 2025,

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