2010 Occupational Pay Comparisons Among Metropolitan Areas — 2011-05-25

Average pay for civilian workers in the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA metropolitan area was 20 percent above the national average in 2010, one of 77 metropolitan areas studied by the National Compensation Survey (NCS), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The Brownsville-Harlingen, TX metropolitan area had a pay relative of 80, meaning workers earned an average of 80 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.