# What is the total payroll of everyone in the USA?  Combined?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-total-payroll-of-everyone-in-the-usa-combined/743474>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 18, 2016, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-total-payroll-of-everyone-in-the-usa-combined/743474 "2016-01-18T02:43:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Linden\_Arden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/53a042/32.png) [@Linden\_Arden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linden_Arden)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-total-payroll-of-everyone-in-the-usa-combined/743474/1 "2016-01-18T02:43:30Z")

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Not capital gains or other income. Not median income. Just payroll.

My Google skills were inadequate to find this on my own.

Thanks.

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**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-total-payroll-of-everyone-in-the-usa-combined/743474/2 "2016-01-18T03:19:35Z")

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics conducts a quarterly census of employment and wages. [Here is the table](http://www.bls.gov/cew/apps/table_maker/v4/table_maker.htm#type=1&year=2015&qtr=2&own=5&ind=10&supp=0) for Q2 of 2015, which appears to be the most recent available. That gives total US wages for the quarter as $1,475,263,370,685.

So a very rough estimate for the year if we multiply that by four is $5,901,053,482,740.

That’s a little less than the [total reported](http://www.bls.gov/cew/apps/table_maker/v4/table_maker.htm#type=1&year=2014&qtr=A&own=5&ind=10&supp=0) for 2014, which was $5,928,257,396,732.

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**Author:** ![Linden\_Arden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/53a042/32.png) [@Linden\_Arden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linden_Arden)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-total-payroll-of-everyone-in-the-usa-combined/743474/3 "2016-01-18T04:08:50Z")

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Thank you friedo.

I was just checking the math on Sanders’ health plan.