2008 Occupational Pay Comparisons Among Metropolitan Areas — 2009-07-24

Average pay for civilian workers in the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA metropolitan area was 19 percent above the national average in 2008, one of 77 metropolitan areas studied by the National Compensation Survey (NCS), the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The Brownsville-Harlingen, TX metropolitan area had a pay relative of 77, meaning workers earned an average of 77 cents for every dollar earned by workers nationwide. Using data from the NCS, pay relatives--a means of assessing pay differences--are available for each of the nine major occupational groups within surveyed metropolitan areas, as well as averaged across all occupations for each area. The average pay relative nationally for all occupations and for each occupational group equals 100. (See table 1.) A pay relative is a calculation of pay--wages, salaries, commissions, and production bonuses--for a given metropolitan area relative to the nation as a whole.