Highest-Paying US Metro Areas by Average Wage (May 2025 BLS Data)

Use this list to see where employers pay the most across all jobs, and to sanity-check an offer or a move. In the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) May 2025 wage survey, the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA metro area had an annual mean wage of $119,230, compared with a US average of $69,770. Below you'll find the top of the list, why those places pay more, and how to test whether the higher pay survives higher local prices.

Quick reference

Two quick definitions before the numbers. The mean is the plain average: add up everyone's pay and divide by the number of workers. The median is the middle worker: half earn more, half earn less. Percentiles work the same way, so the 10th percentile is the pay that only a tenth of workers fall below, and the 90th is the pay that only a tenth of workers top.

The US mean sits well above the US median, which tells you a relatively small group of high earners pulls the average up. Keep that in mind for every metro below.

How BLS measures average pay by metro area

The figures come from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program, a survey of employers rather than workers. According to the BLS May 2025 news release, OEWS covers wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments and produces estimates for about 830 occupations in the nation, states and roughly 530 areas.

A few details matter when you use these numbers to judge a paycheck:

• Who is left out. The survey excludes the self-employed, owners and partners in unincorporated firms, household workers and unpaid family workers. Gig and freelance income is not in these averages.
• What counts as wages. BLS uses straight-time gross pay. That covers your regular rate plus items such as commissions, production bonuses, tips, hazard pay, cost-of-living adjustments and any pay the employer guarantees.
• What does not count. Overtime, severance, shift differentials, nonproduction bonuses (like a year-end bonus), employer spending on benefits and tuition reimbursement are excluded. If your job pays a big annual bonus, equity or regular overtime, your total pay can sit well above the OEWS figure for your role.
• It is a blend of three years. The May 2025 estimates pool six survey panels collected from November 2022 through May 2025. Think of them as a smoothed picture, not a snapshot of last month.
• Metro boundaries are official. Metro areas follow the Office of Management and Budget's definitions (OMB Bulletin 23-01), so "San Jose" means the whole metro, which BLS says includes Santa Clara and San Benito counties.

One more note on this edition: the release says the October 1 to November 12, 2025 federal funding lapse required extra collection and processing time, but the response rate stayed within the normal range and the methodology did not change.

The highest-paying metro areas

The table shows the 10 metro areas with the highest median wage for all occupations in May 2025, sorted here by their mean (average) wage. Figures are the BLS all-occupations estimates for each metro.

How to read it:

• San Jose is in a league of its own. Its mean is roughly $19,000 above San Francisco's, and San Francisco in turn is well clear of the next group. BLS's own San Jose release puts the metro's mean hourly wage at $57.32, against $33.54 nationally.
• The next tier is bunched together. Washington, Seattle and Boulder are within a few hundred dollars of each other on the mean. Differences that small are not meaningful for your decisions, so treat them as a tie.
• Small metros can rank high. Boulder, Lexington Park and Bremerton have far fewer jobs than the big metros, yet they sit in the same pay band. A concentrated local employer base can lift a small metro's average a lot.
• Medians and means can reorder the list. Seattle has a higher median than Washington, but Washington edges ahead on the mean. Bremerton has a higher median than Denver, yet the lowest mean in the table. A metro with a lot of solid middle-income jobs and fewer very high earners shows exactly this pattern.

A caution on the list itself: it was built from the 10 metros with the highest medians. A metro outside that group could post a mean higher than some names near the bottom of this table, so check the full BLS file (steps below) if you are comparing a specific city.

Why these metros pay more: occupation mix and industry

A high metro average does not mean every job there pays more by the same amount. Two things push a metro to the top, and they work together.

1. A bigger share of well-paid occupations

The average is weighted by how many people do each job. If a metro has an unusually large share of managers, engineers and software developers, its average rises even if a cashier there earns close to what a cashier earns elsewhere.

San Jose shows this clearly. In the BLS San Jose release, computer and mathematical jobs make up 13.2 percent of local employment, compared with 3.4 percent nationally. Management is 10.1 percent of local jobs versus 7.2 percent nationally. The metro has 87,350 software developers, and BLS says software developers are employed at 7.09 times the national rate there.

San Francisco's mix tilts the same way, more gently. The BLS San Francisco release shows computer and mathematical jobs at 6.6 percent of employment, legal at 1.2 percent (0.8 percent nationally), and life, physical and social science at 1.7 percent (0.9 percent nationally).

2. Higher pay within the same jobs

The same occupation also tends to pay more in these metros. In San Jose, management jobs averaged $110.19 an hour against $69.84 nationally, and computer and mathematical jobs averaged $97.15 against $57.73.

Lower-paid groups get a raise too, but usually a smaller one. In San Jose:

Source: BLS regional release for the San Jose metro area, May 2025 data.

What this means for you: the metro average is a headline, not your number. If you work in healthcare support or food service, the "San Jose pays far more than average" story only partly applies. Always look up your own occupation in the metro before you plan around a move or set a salary ask.

What happens after adjusting for local prices

High pay and high prices often travel together. To compare fairly, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) publishes Regional Price Parities (RPPs), which measure how the price level in each state and metro compares with the national average for a given year. The national average is set to 100. A metro with an RPP above 100 is more expensive than average; below 100 is cheaper.

BEA releases RPPs with a lag, so the newest RPP year will be older than the May 2025 wage data. When you combine them, label both years, for example "May 2025 wages, [latest year] prices," so nobody mistakes the comparison for a same-year match.

The break-even test

You don't need special software. For any metro:

1. Divide the metro's mean wage by the US mean wage ($69,770 for May 2025).
2. Multiply by 100. That gives you the metro's break-even RPP.
3. Look up the metro's RPP on BEA's page for the latest year available.
4. If BEA's RPP is below the break-even number, the average wage in that metro buys more than the US average wage does. If it is above, local prices more than cancel out the pay premium.

Here are the break-even levels for the top 10, computed from the May 2025 means in the table above:

Read it this way: San Jose prices would have to be about 71 percent above the national average before its average wage stopped buying more than the US average wage. The further down the list you go, the thinner that cushion gets, so the price adjustment matters most for the metros near the bottom of the table.

Where the price adjustment can mislead

• RPPs are averages for everyone. The housing piece reflects rents across the metro, including long-time tenants. If you are moving now, you will pay today's market rent, which can be higher than the average a price index captures.
• Prices are not taxes. RPPs measure prices, not state and local income taxes. Two metros with similar RPPs can leave you with different take-home pay.
• The average worker is not you. Apply the same test to your occupation's wage, not just the all-jobs mean. A role that earns only a small premium in an expensive metro can come out behind even when the metro as a whole comes out ahead.

Example (hypothetical): you are an office administrator weighing a transfer to San Jose. The metro-wide break-even is very high, which sounds great. But for your occupational group, the San Jose mean ($34.22 an hour) is a much smaller step up from the national figure ($24.79) than the metro-wide gap. Run the break-even with $34.22 and $24.79 instead, then compare with BEA's RPP for San Jose before you decide the move pays.

A script you could use if an employer argues a lower offer is fine because "pay is high here anyway":

"I've looked at the BLS data for this role in this metro and at BEA's price index for the area. Once I adjust for local prices, the number you've offered puts me below what this role typically earns here. Can we get closer to [figure from the OEWS table for your occupation]?"

Highest-paying nonmetropolitan areas

OEWS also publishes estimates for nonmetropolitan areas: groups of rural counties within a state, such as "West South Dakota nonmetropolitan area." BLS notes that these boundaries are specific to the OEWS program and set with state workforce agencies, so they are not the same as any other government's "rural" definition.

This article does not rank nonmetro areas, because the full May 2025 area file could not be verified line by line for this piece. You can rank them yourself in a few minutes:

1. Download the May 2025 metropolitan and nonmetropolitan area file from the BLS OEWS data tables page.
2. Filter the occupation column to "All Occupations."
3. Filter the area name column to rows containing "nonmetropolitan."
4. Sort by annual mean wage, largest first. Then look at the employment column: nonmetro areas can be small, so one or two large employers (a mine, a hospital, a military installation) can swing the average.

When you compare a nonmetro area with a metro, apply the same break-even test. BEA also publishes a price parity for the nonmetropolitan portion of each state, which is the closer match for rural areas.

How to look up any metro's wages for your job

The all-jobs average gets you oriented. Your occupation's figures in your metro are what you should negotiate with. Here is the quickest route:

• Find the metro. The BLS May 2025 metro and nonmetro index lists every area by state. Make sure you pick the metro that contains your employer's address, not just the biggest nearby city.
• Read the local release if there is one. BLS regional offices publish short May 2025 releases for many metros, like the San Jose and San Francisco ones cited here. They show the metro's mean hourly wage next to the national figure for all 22 major job groups.
• Pull your occupation. In the full data, check the mean, median, and the 25th, 75th and 90th percentiles for your exact occupation title. If the job title in your offer doesn't match BLS's title, choose the one whose duties match.
• Watch for missing or flagged data. Small metros and rare jobs sometimes show no estimate or a wide range. That is a sign the data is thin, so lean on the state figure or a nearby larger metro as a cross-check.
• Adjust for what OEWS leaves out. Add your expected bonus, overtime or shift pay separately, since OEWS excludes them.

Which percentile should you aim for? A practical rule of thumb:

Then say it plainly:

"Based on the BLS May 2025 data for [occupation] in [metro], the median is [figure] and the 75th percentile is [figure]. With my experience in [skill], I'm looking for something in that upper range."

If a company posts a pay range (some states require it), compare the posted range with these percentiles. A posted range that tops out near the local median for your occupation tells you where you stand before the first conversation. More on metro-level pay is collected on our salaries by city page, and scripts for the ask itself are on the negotiation page.

What to do next

• Look up your occupation, not just the metro, in the May 2025 OEWS data.
• Run the break-even test with your occupation's wage and BEA's latest RPP for the metro.
• Add bonuses, overtime and shift pay on top, since the survey leaves them out.
• Bring the specific percentile figure to your next pay conversation, with the source and year attached.

BLS usually publishes a new OEWS edition each spring, and BEA updates its price parities once a year, so recheck both before you make a big decision on old numbers.