Census administrative data show what new hires earn once they settle into a job. From mid-2024 to mid-2025, new hires into stable jobs at firms aged 0 to 1 year averaged $3,397 a month in covered wages, 78.9% of the $4,306 averaged at firms 11 years old or more. The gap between all stable employees at the same firms was wider. These are nominal earnings that reflect differences in industry, occupation, hours and location, not what any firm pays for the same work.
The Census Bureau’s Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI) are built from state unemployment insurance wage records linked to Census business data. This article uses QWI average monthly earnings of new hires into stable jobs, based on covered UI wages. Census defines the measure as “Average monthly earnings of newly stable employees (i.e., full-quarter employees who were new hires with a firm in the previous quarter).”
Two features of that definition matter. First, it counts only new hires who stayed long enough to work a full quarter. Hires who left quickly are not included, so this is a selected group, and the share of hires who stay may differ by firm age. Second, it is earnings, not a wage rate: it includes no information on hours, and it covers UI-reported wages only, not benefits or other compensation.
Firm age is measured for the whole national firm: “Firm age and size are defined at the national level, rather than the state level,” according to Census, and are reported for private-sector firms only.
Earnings by firm age
Private sector, all industries, both sexes, all worker ages, nominal dollars per month, not seasonally adjusted. The recent-window columns are means of four quarterly values, 2024Q3 to 2025Q2. The last column is the mean of 12 quarterly ratios, 2017 to 2019:
| Firm age | New hires into stable jobs | All stable (full-quarter) employees | New hires as a share of stable employees’ earnings | New hires, ratio to firms aged 11+ | Same ratio, 2017 to 2019 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 to 1 year | $3,397 | $4,150 | 81.9% | 78.9% | 82.1% |
| 2 to 3 years | $3,569 | $4,737 | 75.5% | 82.9% | 79.4% |
| 4 to 5 years | $3,656 | $4,919 | 74.4% | 84.9% | 85.0% |
| 6 to 10 years | $3,698 | $5,197 | 71.2% | 85.9% | 87.9% |
| 11 years or more | $4,306 | $6,964 | 62.1% | 100% | 100% |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Quarterly Workforce Indicators, national files by firm age, release R2026Q3, downloaded October 3, 2026. Ratios are means of the four quarterly ratios, so they can differ slightly from dividing the dollar means shown.
New-hire earnings rise with firm age in the recent window. Against firms aged 11 or more, the ratio for every younger class was between 78.9% and 85.9%.
The registered comparison
The study set one comparison in advance: for each quarter, new-hire earnings at firms aged 0 to 1 year divided by the same measure at firms aged 11 or more, averaged across the latest four quarters, at or before 2025Q3, in which every value used had a QWI status of 1 or 6.
| Quarter | Ratio, firms aged 0 to 1 to firms aged 11+ |
|---|---|
| 2024Q3 | 79.4% |
| 2024Q4 | 81.2% |
| 2025Q1 | 77.9% |
| 2025Q2 | 77.2% |
| Mean | 78.9% |
Dividing the four-quarter dollar averages instead gives the same 78.9%. In 2017 to 2019 the mean ratio was 82.1%.
Census says QWI uses “a system of multiplicative noise infusion, whereby all released data are ‘fuzzed.'” Every value carries a status flag, and this analysis used only values with status 1 (OK) or 6 (calculated from other released measures, no significant distortion). Census publishes no sampling error or other margin of error for QWI, and a covariance-aware interval for this ratio is not available from the public tables. No statistical significance is claimed, and values can be revised in later releases.
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New hires against all stable employees
The fourth column of the table compares new hires with all stable employees at firms of the same age. At firms aged 0 to 1, new hires averaged 81.9% of what stable employees earned. At firms aged 11 or more, they averaged 62.1%. Put differently, the earnings gap between young and established firms is wider for stable employees than for new hires: dividing the four-quarter averages, stable employees at firms aged 0 to 1 earned about 60% of what stable employees at firms aged 11 or more earned, against 79% for new hires. Workforces at firms aged 0 to 1 have, by definition, shorter possible tenure with the firm than workforces at firms aged 11 or more. The data does not isolate why the two gaps differ.
What the numbers mean for an owner
These are descriptive aggregates for the stated federal-data population. They do not identify causal effects, diagnose an individual company, or estimate the result of adopting a practice. The guidance that follows is operating judgment, not a finding from the data.
A young company recruits against established employers whose new hires, on average, earn more. The data cannot say whether that reflects different jobs, different industries, fewer hours or lower pay for comparable work, and the table should not be used as a pay benchmark. What the data show is an aggregate earnings difference between these groups. As operating judgment, a young company should expect some candidates to compare its offer with established employers, and should be ready to compete on the whole offer.
The second pattern is useful in a different way. New hires at the youngest firms earned much closer to what all stable employees there earned (81.9%) than new hires at firms aged 11 or more did (62.1%), a difference that may reflect tenure, seniority, career progression and other factors the data does not isolate. A young company that wants to keep the people it hires will eventually need the same thing: a visible path from entry earnings to something better.
How to handle it: compete on the whole offer, and plan the second year
The steps below are an operating recommendation. This study did not test them, and the Census Bureau does not endorse them.
1. Benchmark pay against the right comparison. National averages across all industries say little about a specific role. Use local pay data for the actual occupation and level, and decide deliberately whether to pay at, above or below that market.
2. Put the whole offer in writing. Base pay, any variable pay, benefits, flexibility, and what the role will lead to. A young company that cannot match an established employer on salary often can on scope, speed of advancement and direct access to leadership, but only if the candidate can see it.
3. Define what the second year looks like. Write down, for each core role, what someone must achieve to earn the next step in pay and responsibility. It turns a modest starting figure into a credible trajectory, and it gives the company a retention tool that costs nothing until it is earned.
4. Track who stays past the first quarter. The Census measure counts people who were new hires in one quarter and full-quarter employees in the next. A young company should define its own checkpoint, such as the share of hires still employed after ninety days, and track it with what those employees earn.
5. Revisit pay when the company’s position changes. As revenue becomes predictable, the case for paying below the market weakens. Set a date, such as the close of each fiscal year, to review pay against the market and against the company’s own results.
What this data does not tell you
- It does not show what any firm pays for a given job, or the hourly rate behind these earnings.
- It covers only new hires who stayed a full quarter, a selected group.
- Earnings are nominal UI-covered wages and exclude benefits and other compensation.
- Differences by firm age reflect industry, occupation, location, hours and worker mix as well as pay practice, and none of these is isolated.
- QWI is noise-protected administrative data with no published sampling error, and values can be revised.
Method
Already published by the agency: Census publishes QWI earnings of new hires into stable jobs and of stable employees by firm age every quarter. New here: four-quarter and pre-pandemic averages across firm-age classes, the registered young-versus-established ratio quarter by quarter, and the comparison of new hires with stable employees within each firm age.
Source. U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Quarterly Workforce Indicators, national firm-age file, release R2026Q3, data through 2025Q3, downloaded October 3, 2026. Selection: private ownership, all industries, both sexes, all worker ages, not seasonally adjusted.
Window rule. The current window is the latest four quarters, at or before 2025Q3, in which every value used had a status of 1 (OK) or 6 (calculated from other released measures, no significant distortion): 2024Q3 to 2025Q2. Values with any other status are treated as missing, never as zero. The baseline is 2017Q1 to 2019Q4.
Protocol. The comparison, the window rule and the baseline were fixed in a dated protocol before any value was computed. The protocol (wave 2 section, frozen October 4, 2026) and its dated amendments are at https://kamyarshah.com/public-data-protocol/
Check. All figures were recomputed from the raw files by a separately written program, built without access to this study’s results. As a second check, the ratio was rebuilt from state-level values for the 48 states and the District of Columbia that the Census data service returned for these quarters, weighting each state by its number of all new hires, because the Census data service does not serve the count of new stable hires that matches this earnings measure. Alaska and Michigan returned no data. Both limits make this a partial, approximate check. The quarterly ratios from that rebuild (79.8%, 81.7%, 78.5% and 77.5%) agree with the national file to within 0.7 point.
The agencies did not review or endorse this analysis. Kamyar Shah sells fractional COO and CMO services.
Questions about this analysis can be sent through https://kamyarshah.com/contact/.
