BY STATE

Salary Differences by State — What the BLS Data Shows

4 min read·BLS OES May 2024

Geographic wage variation in the United States is enormous, and it’s not simply explained by cost of living. According to BLS OES May 2024 data, workers in Washington state, California, and Washington D.C. earn 26–38% above the national median across all occupations — driven by high concentrations of technology and financial services employment, and the competitive labor markets those industries create. At the other end, Mississippi, West Virginia, and Arkansas wages sit 15–20% below the national median.

Occupation-Specific Variation

The variation is even sharper within specific occupations. A software developer in San Francisco earns a state median around $160,000; the same role in Mississippi pays around $90,000 — a 78% gap. For nurses, New York and California medians are roughly 40% above those in the South. These gaps reflect both industry concentration and cost of living — but cost of living doesn’t scale linearly with wages, which creates genuine arbitrage opportunities for remote workers who can earn coastal salaries while living in lower-cost markets.

The Remote Work Effect

Remote work has begun compressing these gaps, but more slowly than expected. Employers in high-wage states increasingly apply location-based pay adjustments, meaning a remote hire in Austin may earn 80–90% of the San Francisco rate rather than the full amount. The BLS data captures these dynamics with a lag — expect the 2025 and 2026 releases to show continued convergence in software, data, and other fully remote-friendly roles, even as in-person roles in healthcare, construction, and retail maintain their regional wage structures.

How to Use This for Career Decisions

The salary calculator below lets you see your percentile in any state for any of our 116 occupation categories. Use it to compare your current location against states you’re considering — both for job searches and remote work negotiations. A 15% wage increase moving from Texas to Washington is significant, but so is a 15% decrease in housing costs moving the other direction. The calculator gives you the wage side of that equation; local cost-of-living data completes the picture.

BLS OES 2024 · 116 Occupations

Salary Percentile Calculator

See exactly where your salary ranks among US workers in your field and state.

Based on official BLS data for 116 occupations across all 50 US states.

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Frequently Asked Questions

A salary percentile tells you what percentage of workers in a given occupation earn less than you. For example, if you're at the 70th percentile, you earn more than 70% of workers in that field. It's a more useful benchmark than a simple average because it shows where you stand across the full distribution of wages.

We use linear interpolation between the BLS wage anchor points (10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 90th percentiles) to estimate your exact percentile rank. State figures are derived by applying BLS regional wage indices to the national data. For salaries below the 10th or above the 90th percentile, we flag this clearly rather than extrapolating an unreliable estimate.

All data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OES) program, May 2024 release. This is the most comprehensive, official source of US occupational wage data, covering over 800 occupations and nearly every industry. We cover 116 occupation groups across all 50 states and Washington D.C.

If you're below the median (50th percentile) for your occupation in your state, you have a data-backed argument for a raise. Come prepared with your percentile result and the BLS benchmark figures from the table below the gauge. Framing your ask around official government data — rather than salary sites — is often more persuasive to employers and hiring managers.

According to BLS OES May 2024 data, the median annual wage across all occupations in the United States is approximately $49,500. However, this varies enormously by occupation — from around $30,000 for food preparation workers to over $236,000 for physicians and surgeons. That's why comparing within your specific occupation is far more meaningful than a national cross-occupation average.