Occupational Pay Relatives news release text
Technical Contact: USDL 09-0843 (202) 691-6199 NCSinfo@bls.gov Media Contact: (202) 691-5902 FOR RELEASE: 10:00 AM EDT Internet Address: FRIDAY, JULY 24, 2009 http;//www.bls.gov/ncs OCCUPATIONAL PAY COMPARISONS AMONG METROPOLITAN AREAS, 2008 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. The calculation controls for differences among areas in occupational composition, establishment and occupational characteristics, and the fact that data are collected for areas at different times during the year. Simple pay comparisons calculating the ratio of the average pay for an area to the entire United States in percentage terms would not control for interarea differences in occupational composition and other factors, which may have a significant effect on pay relatives. Pay relatives calculated for all occupations were significantly different from the national average in 65 of the 77 areas. Table A below lists selected metropolitan area pay relatives compared to average pay nationally among those studied in the NCS. Table B provides selected metropolitan area pay relatives for each of nine major occupational groups. In addition, area-to-area comparisons have been calculated for all 77 metropolitan areas and will soon be available on the BLS website at http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ocs/payrel.htm. Table A. Selected metropolitan area pay relatives (of 77 metropolitan areas surveyed) Metropolitan Area Pay Relative (Average pay nationally = 100) San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA 119 New York-Newark-Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA 114 Boston-Worcester-Manchester, MA-NH 111 Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, CA 109 Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia, DC-MD-VA-WV 109 Chicago-Naperville-Michigan City, IL-IN-WI 108 Philadelphia-Camden-Vineland, PA-NJ-DE-MD 105 Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Gainesville, GA-AL 100 Houston-Baytown-Huntsville, TX 98 Dallas-Fort Worth, TX 97 Table B. Selected metropolitan area-to-national pay relatives for nine major occupational groups, 2008 (of 77 metropolitan areas surveyed) Major Occupational Group Metropolitan Area Pay Relative Management, business, and financial New York-Newark-Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA 115 Salinas, CA 113 Professional and related Salinas, CA 120 San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA 119 Service San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA 126 Salinas, CA 123 Sales and related Salinas, CA 129 San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA 122 Office and administrative support San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA 120 New York-Newark-Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA 116 Construction and extraction New York-Newark-Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA 132 Chicago-Naperville-Michigan City, IL-IN-WI 131 Installation, maintenance, and repair Salinas, CA 124 San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA 117 Production Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Truckee, CA-NV 121 Bloomington-Normal, IL 116 Detroit-Warren-Flint, MI 116 Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia, WA 116 Transportation and material moving Springfield, MA 114 Fort Collins-Loveland, CO 113 The pay relative for construction and extraction occupations in the New York-Newark-Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA area was 132, meaning the pay in the New York metropolitan area for that occupational group averaged 32 percent more than the national average pay for that occupational group. By contrast, the pay relative for workers in construction and extraction in the Brownsville-Harlingen, Texas area was 66, meaning pay for workers in those occupations averaged 34 percent less than the national average. (See table 1.) Using pay relative data To assist data users in analyzing these data, tests have been conducted to determine whether differences between each pay relative and the pay relative for the nation as a whole are statistically significant (that is, the difference in pay for occupations in that area from the national average cannot be accounted for by sampling error). Similar tests are conducted for the area-to-area comparisons. In Table 1, statistically significant pay relatives are denoted with an asterisk (*). More information on pay relative controls, calculations, and significance testing is available in the Technical Note. Yearly differences in area and occupational group pay relatives do not infer changes in underlying economic conditions.
- Table 1. Pay relatives for major occupational groups in metropolitan areas
- Occupational Pay Relatives explanatory note
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Last Modified Date: July 24, 2009