Our short housing video on these figures uses two public sources: average weekly pay from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and single-family building permits from the U.S. Census Bureau. This page lists every figure exactly as the publisher reported it, explains what each one measures, and links to the source.
Average weekly pay, first quarter of 2026
The pay panel uses the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, known as QCEW. The rows always appear in the same fixed order, so the panel is a list, not a ranking.
- · Florida: $1,518
- · Georgia: $1,539
- · Maryland: $1,676
- · Pennsylvania: $1,550
- · Texas: $1,646
- · United States: $1,654
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, QCEW · first quarter 2026, preliminary · released Aug 28, 2026.
What the pay figure measures
Each figure is the average weekly wage across all jobs covered by unemployment insurance, in every industry, private and public employers together. BLS builds it from the quarterly reports employers file: total wages for the quarter, divided by average monthly employment, divided by the thirteen weeks in the quarter.
A few things it is not. It is not take-home pay, and it is not a median; it averages full-time and part-time jobs together. Wages in the quarter include bonuses and other cash payments. The count leaves out proprietors and the unincorporated self-employed. BLS also notes that the mix of full-time and part-time work, the mix of higher- and lower-paying jobs, and the number of pay dates inside a quarter all move the average, and it asks readers to keep those factors in mind when comparing states or quarters.
Preliminary means the figures can still change. BLS publishes final figures for a year with the first-quarter data of the following year, and its release calendar lists the second-quarter 2026 data for Dec 2, 2026.
New single-family permits, August 2026
The permit figures come from the Census Bureau's Building Permits Survey state file for August 2026. Both lines come from the same file and the same month:
- · Florida: 9,697 single-family homes authorized
- · United States: 74,220 single-family homes authorized
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey · August 2026 · released Sep 24, 2026.
What a permit count measures
A permit count is the number of new privately owned housing units that local governments authorized by issuing a building or zoning permit. Single-family means one-unit structures: detached houses, plus row houses and townhouses separated from their neighbors by a ground-to-roof wall. These figures are not seasonally adjusted, so each is the actual count for the month. When a permit office does not report, Census fills the gap with an estimate, and these figures include those estimates.
A permit is the first step, not a finished house. Census tracks new homes through separate stages: authorized, started, under construction and completed. A home authorized in August may start later.
Census publishes more than one national permits figure. To keep the pair matched, both lines on our chart come from the same state file, where the national line equals the sum of the state rows in that same file.
Where to go next
The Sources list below links each publisher's page. How to read our housing charts walks through the source line on every chart, and our property search is open whenever you want to look at homes.