If all wages made in the USA were split evenly between every adult
American what would this average wage be?  Also, what about a world
average wage?

Dear eclectrician,

Here is what I was able to fing out:

- Total amount of wages paid in the USA in 2005 (preliminary data): $
5,352,118,704,000

- Total US population of 18 years and over on 1 July 2005: 222,940,420

If the 5.35 billiards were divided up equally among the entire adult
population (workers and non-workers) of the USA, every adult person
would get a share of $ 24,006.9464 for the year 2005.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to make a similar calculation
relating to the entire world due to the lack of data. Not even the
United Nations, the World Bank or one of their suborganizations, which
are collecting huge amounts of statistical data, have information on
how much wages are paid worldwide.

However, in the data collections of the World Bank I found data about
the approximate 2004 worldwide gross income per capita which is $ 6987
according to their calculation methods. It is not exactly what you are
looking for, but maybe that information will be of use for you.

Regards,
Scriptor



Sources:

U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics: Quarterly Survey
of Employment and Wages
http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/outside.jsp?survey=en

U.S. Census Bureau: National Population Datasets
http://www.census.gov/popest/datasets.html

World Bank: GNI per Capita 2005, Atlas Method and PPP
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/GNIPC.pdf

Great answer!  Thank you very much.

US GDP is $12.36 trillion (as of 2005).
US Population 15 and older (I know that is not exactly what you want)
is 237 million.
That is $52,372 per adult (15 and over).

World GDP is $60.71 tillion.
World Population 15 and older is 4,736 million.
That is $12,819 per adult (15 and over).

Data from the CIA World Factbook (using purchasing power parity):
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html

Hi jack: Only about half of the GDP = gross domestic product is wages,
even if you stretch the definition of wages. If we award the inept
equally with the shakers and movers, we will discover many of the
later are over cautious especially if we punish them for bad short
term performance. This could easily halve the GDP. Socialism and
communism don't work well, and typically lots of ceating occurs,
besides poverty for up to 99% of the population.   Neil

Thanks for the "wage" clarification.  I figured in this question that
GDP as a whole would matter more than wages because someone in the US
sees the benefit of the GDP in one form or another (and same goes for
every country).  I should have stuck to wages though since that was
the official question.