The COVID-19 pandemic produced major disruptions in the US labor market, reshaping patterns of employment and wages across many industries. In the broader workforce, the lowest-income workers experienced some of the largest wage gains during the pandemic recovery, leading to a compression of wage disparities. However, it remains unclear whether similar patterns occurred within the healthcare workforce, which faced unique labor shortages and pressures during the pandemic.

This article explores data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) to analyze trends in inflation-adjusted median weekly earnings among healthcare workers from 2015 to 2024, with particular attention to differences across occupational groups and demographic characteristics, including education, race and ethnicity, and sex.

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