Methodology

Every figure on StateSalary is a transcription of a cited federal release. This page documents which releases, what the figures represent, and the known limits.

Data sources

Wages — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics

Wage figures are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) programme, May 2024 release (published April 2025). OEWS is a semi-annual survey of approximately 1.1 million establishments, covering non-farm wage and salary workers. We ingest the state cross-industry file state_M2024_dl.xlsx and read:

• A_MEAN — annual mean wage
• A_MEDIAN — annual median wage
• TOT_EMP — total employment

Only the cross-industry rows (NAICS=000000) are used. State-level figures are shown for all occupations combined (SOC 00-0000) and for the 20 occupations listed on /jobs/.

Price levels — BEA Regional Price Parities

The Regional Price Parities (RPP) index comes from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2024 release (published 19 February 2026). RPP measures price levels by state relative to the national average, where US = 100. A state with RPP 110 has average prices 10 % above the national level; an RPP of 90 is 10 % below. We use line 1 (“All items”) from table SARPP.

Household income — Census ACS

Median household income is from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 1-year estimates, 2024 (published 9 September 2025), table B19013, as tabulated in publication ACSBR-025 “Household Income in States and Metropolitan Areas: 2024”. Values are in 2024 inflation-adjusted dollars.

Computed figures

Cost-of-living adjusted wage

We compute a purchasing-power-adjusted mean wage as:

adjusted wage = nominal mean wage × 100 ÷ RPP

This answers “how much would this wage buy if prices were at the national average?” It is not an inflation adjustment and does not account for state or local taxes.

National weighted aggregate (occupation pages)

On occupation pages, the “national” row is an employment-weighted mean across the 50 states and DC, computed as Σ(state employment × state mean) ÷ Σ(state employment). This is a close approximation of BLS’s own national figure but is not identical — BLS’s national table is released from a separate file that we do not currently ingest. Use the BLS national OEWS table for the official figure.

What the numbers mean

Mean vs. median

The mean is the arithmetic average of all reported wages. High earners pull it upward, so in unequal wage distributions (which is most of them) the mean sits well above the middle. The median is the wage at which half of workers earn more and half earn less. For a “what does a typical worker make?” question, use the median.

Annual vs. hourly

OEWS publishes both. For occupations where annual figures are not meaningful (e.g. some teaching and seasonal jobs paid partly by contract), BLS uses hourly wages multiplied by a 2,080-hour year. The ANNUAL flag in the source file marks those rows; we carry the figures through as reported.

Employment

Employment is the number of wage and salary jobs in the occupation or geography at the reference period. It excludes self-employed workers.

Known limitations

• Suppression. Where OEWS employment or response rates are too low to publish safely, BLS replaces the figure with *, **, or #. We show an em dash (—) in place of any suppressed figure. We do not estimate, interpolate, or carry forward prior values.
• Coverage. OEWS excludes self-employed workers, farm workers, household workers, and unpaid family workers. Fields with large self-employed populations (e.g. some trades, creative industries) are therefore under-represented.
• Reference period. OEWS May 2024 figures reflect pay observed in May 2024. They are not seasonally adjusted and are not wage forecasts.
• Occupation definitions. SOC codes are the 2018 Standard Occupational Classification system. Code definitions occasionally change between SOC revisions; figures from different SOC vintages are not directly comparable.
• Geography. State totals include all metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas within the state. Metro-level data is published by BLS but not currently displayed on StateSalary.

Update cadence

• OEWS — annual, spring (state and national files released together)
• BEA RPP — annual, winter
• ACS 1-year — annual, September

Pages on StateSalary are regenerated after each release. The vintage in effect is printed in the source box at the bottom of every state and occupation page.

Reproducing our numbers

Every figure on StateSalary is a straight read from a published source. To reproduce a state-level mean or median wage yourself:

1. Download state_M2024_dl.xlsx from bls.gov/oes/tables.htm.
2. Filter to AREA_TITLE = [state] and NAICS = 000000.
3. For all-occupation figures, take the row where OCC_CODE = 00-0000. Read A_MEAN and A_MEDIAN.
4. For a specific occupation, take the row matching its SOC code (listed on the occupation page header).

RPP values reproduce from bea.gov, table SARPP, line 1, year 2024. ACS household income reproduces from the Census Bureau’s ACSBR-025 publication.