Seattle-area pay versus living costs: which common jobs keep up

Seattle pays more than most of the country. The question that matters for your budget is whether it pays enough more for your particular job to cover Seattle-area prices. If you're weighing a move, comparing offers or checking a current Seattle paycheck, this guide gives you a simple two-number test, runs it for every major job group in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro, and shows you how to apply it to a real offer.

How to use this page: two premiums, one comparison

You only need two numbers.

• Your job's Seattle pay premium. That's how much more your job pays in the Seattle area than it pays nationally, as a percentage. To get it, divide the Seattle figure by the national figure and subtract 1.
• Seattle's price premium. That's how much more things cost in the Seattle area than in the US overall, from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). If prices run 13% above the national level, the price premium is 13%.

If your job's pay premium is bigger than the price premium, your pay goes further in Seattle than the same job's pay does in a typical US location. If it's smaller, you're effectively taking a pay cut by working there, even if the dollar figure looks bigger.

A quick way to run the test: divide the Seattle pay figure by 1.13 (Seattle's price level, explained below). That converts it into "national-price dollars." Then compare the result with the national figure for the same job.

Averages, medians and percentiles in plain words

The Seattle comparison data BLS publishes in its local news release uses the mean, which is the ordinary average: add up everyone's pay and divide by the number of workers. A median is the middle worker: half earn more, half earn less. A percentile tells you where someone sits in the line: the 25th percentile earns more than a quarter of workers in that job, the 75th more than three quarters.

The mean is pulled up by high earners, so it usually sits above the median. Nationally, BLS puts the average hourly wage across all jobs at $33.54 for May 2025, but the median at just $24.51. Keep that in mind: a typical worker in a given job often earns somewhat less than the averages in the tables below. When you look up your own job (steps further down), check the median and percentiles too.

Seattle-area pay compared with the nation (May 2025 OEWS)

The figures here come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey, labelled May 2025, the latest set BLS has published. The Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro covers King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, so it includes Tacoma, Everett, Bellevue and the eastside suburbs, not just the city.

Across all jobs, BLS reports a Seattle-area average of $44.13 an hour against $33.54 nationally. That's a premium of about 32%. Here is how each major job group compares, ranked by the Seattle premium. The last column applies Seattle's price level (next section) to show how far ahead or behind each group lands once prices are counted.

Source: BLS, Occupational Employment and Wages in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, May 2025 (table A). Premiums and price-adjusted gaps are Simply Salaries calculations using BEA's all-items price level for the metro.

Two things stand out: lower-paid service work carries the biggest percentage premiums, and most groups clear the price bar on average. Legal work falls well short, and arts and media land right at break-even.

Seattle's price level in BEA's regional price parities

BEA's regional price parities (RPPs) compare price levels across places for a single year, with the US set at 100. BEA's newest figures cover 2024 and came out in February 2026, but that release prints only state numbers and leaves metro figures to BEA's online data tables. The latest BEA release that prints a metro table is the December 2024 edition, covering 2023, so that's the year used here. BEA's 2024 all-items figure for the Seattle metro is slightly lower than the 2023 one, so the gaps in this article lean, if anything, a little against Seattle. BEA has scheduled 2025 figures for December 10, 2026.

Source: BEA, Real Personal Consumption Expenditures by State and Real Personal Income by State and Metropolitan Area, 2023 (table 4).

So the bar a Seattle job has to clear is roughly 13%. Notice how uneven it is: goods cost a bit more, utilities less, housing far more. That matters for who comes out ahead.

A few limits worth knowing:

• Different years. The wages are May 2025 and the price level is 2023. RPPs compare places, not years, and a metro's position tends to shift slowly, so the comparison is still useful. Treat a gap of a couple of points either way as a tie.
• Taxes aren't in it. RPPs measure prices, not taxes. Washington has no personal income tax on wages, which can tilt the math further in Seattle's favor depending on where you're comparing from. We cover that separately under salaries by city, along with side-by-side metro comparisons, so this page sticks to wages and prices.
• Metro-wide. One number covers three counties. Rents in central Seattle or Bellevue are not the same as rents in Pierce County.

Jobs whose Seattle pay premium beats the price premium, and jobs whose doesn't

Clear winners

On these averages, the groups that come out furthest ahead after prices are personal care and service, food preparation and serving, construction, and healthcare support, all roughly 17% to 23% ahead in national-price terms. Production and transportation jobs follow closely.

Healthcare practitioners, management and computer and mathematical jobs also clear the bar comfortably, at about 12% ahead each. For tech and management, the dollar gap is large too: the computer and mathematical average is $72.96 an hour in Seattle against $57.73 nationally.

Narrow winners and ties

Business and financial operations, architecture and engineering, and community and social service clear the 13% bar, but only by about 4 to 5 points. Life sciences and arts and media sit at break-even. For these groups, where you fall in the range and what you pay for housing will decide whether Seattle works out.

Falling short

Legal is the one major group that clearly loses ground. Its Seattle average ($67.24) is almost identical to the national average ($67.07), so after prices it lands about 11% behind. This group mixes lawyers with paralegals and other legal support jobs, so check your specific role before drawing conclusions.

Detailed jobs: business and finance

BLS's Seattle release also breaks out detailed jobs in one group, business and financial operations. Here the picture is more mixed, a reminder that a group average can hide very different results.

Source: BLS Seattle release (table 1) and BLS national May 2025 OEWS table 1. Annual figures are BLS's, based on 2,080 hours a year. Gaps are Simply Salaries calculations.

Logisticians, market research and marketing specialists, and training specialists do well. Accountants, management analysts and loan officers break even. Event planners, financial analysts and personal financial advisors fall a little behind, credit analysts well behind, and tax preparers earn less in Seattle than the national average even before prices.

The housing catch

Everything above uses the all-items price level of 113. But if you rent, housing is a big slice of your spending, and Seattle's housing index is 151.5. The more of your budget goes to rent, the higher your personal price premium is likely to be.

That hits hardest in exactly the groups with the biggest percentage premiums. Food service and personal care workers come out well ahead on the all-items measure, but they start from lower pay, so rent tends to take a larger share of their paycheck. If that's you, run your own budget with real rent quotes rather than relying on the 13% figure. For higher earners who spend a smaller share on housing, the all-items number is a fairer guide.

How to look up your own job

The tables above cover job groups and business and finance roles. For any other job, BLS publishes the full list for the metro.

1. Open the BLS May 2025 metro area estimates and choose Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA. You'll find employment, mean, median and percentile wages for hundreds of detailed jobs.
2. Find the national figure for the same job in the BLS national May 2025 table. Compare like with like: mean with mean, or median with median.
3. Work out the premium: Seattle figure divided by national figure, minus 1.
4. Compare it with 13%. Or divide the Seattle figure by 1.13 and compare that with the national figure.
5. Sanity-check the sample. If BLS shows a small employment count or leaves cells blank, the local estimate is thin. Lean more on the percentiles and on real job postings.

Using Washington's posting rule to check a specific employer

The BLS numbers tell you about the market. Washington's Equal Pay and Opportunities Act helps you check what one particular employer intends to pay.

According to the Washington Department of Labor & Industries (L&I), employers with 15 or more employees must include three things in job postings:

• a wage scale or salary range (or the fixed amount, if only one wage is offered)
• a general description of all benefits
• a general description of other compensation, such as bonuses, commissions or stock options

L&I says the range should be the employer's genuine expected pay range at the time of posting, running from the lowest to the highest pay set before the job was posted. L&I also says the range should avoid open-ended wording, such as a figure "and up" with no top or "up to" a figure with no bottom. The rule covers recruiting done by the employer directly or through a third party, such as a recruiter.

A few other protections in the same law are useful when you negotiate:

• Employers can't ask for your salary history, and can't require your past pay to meet a minimum. They may confirm it only after you've accepted an offer that includes pay.
• Current employees offered an internal transfer or promotion can ask for the new role's wage scale or salary range (again, employers with 15 or more employees).
• Employers can't stop you from discussing or comparing pay with coworkers.

If a posting doesn't follow the rules, anyone can give the employer written notice, and the employer then has 5 business days to fix it. L&I says it investigates complaints about postings and can take enforcement action if a posting isn't corrected. Check the L&I equal pay page for the complaint form and contact details, and talk to L&I or an employment lawyer if you think your rights were violated.

How to use posted ranges as data: collect five to ten current Seattle-area postings for your job title and seniority, note each range, and see where they cluster. Then set that against the BLS median and percentiles. If the postings sit well below the BLS figures for your job, that's a sign to push or keep looking.

Example: a Seattle offer for your job

This is a hypothetical example to show the math. The offer amount is made up; the benchmark figures are BLS's and BEA's.

Say you're a marketing specialist in another state and a Seattle-area company offers you $105,000.

• Seattle premium on the offer: the national average for market research analysts and marketing specialists is $89,490. $105,000 is about 17% above that.
• Price test: $105,000 divided by 1.13 is about $92,900 in national-price dollars. That's still above the national average, so on prices alone the offer clears the bar, by roughly 4%.
• Break-even point: the Seattle salary that only matches the national average after prices is about $101,100 ($89,490 times 1.13).
• Local benchmark: the Seattle-area average for this job is $116,050. The offer is about 10% below it.

So the offer beats the price bar, narrowly, but sits below what this job averages locally. Remember that the average includes senior people and is pulled up by high earners, so check the Seattle median and percentiles for the job before deciding how hard to push. Then look at the posting: if the offer sits below the midpoint of the posted range, you have a clear, employer-supplied reason to ask for more.

A script you could use:

"Thanks, I'm excited about this role. I've looked at the posted range and at BLS data for marketing specialists in the Seattle area, and the local average is around $116,000. Given my experience with [specific skill or result], I was hoping for something closer to that figure. Is there room to move toward it?"

If base pay is fixed, ask about the other compensation the posting has to describe:

"If the base is set, could we look at a signing bonus or an earlier first review?"

There's no guarantee they'll move, but a number tied to the employer's own posted range and public data is harder to brush off than one pulled from thin air. More scripts are in our negotiation section.

What to do next

• Look up your exact job in the BLS Seattle-area data and note the median, 25th and 75th percentiles.
• Run the two-number test: your Seattle premium against roughly 13%.
• If you rent, price actual apartments in the parts of King, Pierce or Snohomish you'd live in, since housing runs far above the overall index.
• Pull several current Washington job postings for your role and record the ranges.
• After December 10, 2026, check BEA's new figures to see whether the price bar has moved.

Pay data moves every year, so you'll find updates on raises and wage growth in pay trends and role-by-role ranges in salaries by role.