Some observations about journalism as an occupation were recently published by the Wall Street Journal. The statistics were based on 2010 U.S. Census statistics.
The median annual salary for journalism majors is $50,000, per the latest data. This is about the same as majors in English, history, or communications. However, journalists have a 7 percent higher unemployment rate than similar majors.
Journalism is the 25th most popular major with business and accounting being the most popular fields. Journalists make up a slightly larger portion of the U.S. workforce than in 2000, but represent less than 6 percent of workers.
Women represented almost 47 percent of journalists, less than one point below the percentage of women in the workforce as a whole. Blacks are very under represented in the field, making up 10.8 percent of the total US workforce, but only 3 percent of all journalists.
