Metro pay spread: how much the same job's pay differs across U.S. metro areas

1. Across 318 occupations with reliable estimates in at least 20 metro areas, the typical occupation's median wage in a high-paying metro (90th percentile of metros) is 36% above its median in a low-paying metro (10th percentile): a metro pay spread of 1.36. For the middle half of occupations the spread runs from 1.29 to 1.50 (BLS OEWS May 2025; nominal wages, not adjusted for cost of living).M-F1
2. In dollars, the typical gap between the 90th- and 10th-percentile metro median annual wages of the same occupation is $20,023, across the same 318 occupations. It is a gap between metro medians, not any worker's earnings (BLS OEWS May 2025; nominal wages, not adjusted for cost of living).M-F2
3. 78 of the 318 occupations have a metro pay spread of 1.5 or more, meaning the high-paying-metro median is at least 50% above the low-paying-metro median; 10 have a spread below 1.2 (BLS OEWS May 2025; nominal wages, not adjusted for cost of living).M-F3
4. Firefighters show the widest metro pay spread of the 318 occupations: the 90th-percentile metro median annual wage ($81,488) is 2.17 times the 10th-percentile metro median ($37,552), across 117 metro areas (BLS OEWS May 2025; nominal wages, not adjusted for cost of living). Caveat: OEWS turns firefighters' hourly rates into annual pay at 2,080 hours, while firefighter shift schedules and the way departments set hourly rates differ, so part of this spread may reflect how pay is recorded rather than pay levels.M-F4
5. The next two widest spreads belong to tipped occupations, bartenders (2.13) and waiters and waitresses (2.08). OEWS wages include tips, so for these jobs the spread covers reported tip income as well as base pay (BLS OEWS May 2025).M-F5
6. The three narrowest spreads belong to the three U.S. Postal Service occupations in the data: postal service clerks at 1.06, mail sorters and processors at 1.09 and mail carriers at 1.09 (BLS OEWS May 2025; nominal wages, not adjusted for cost of living).M-F6
7. For scale, not as a separate result: across the same 318 occupations, the national 90th-to-10th-percentile wage ratio among individual workers has a median of 2.19, against a median metro pay spread of 1.36. The two ratios measure different things (workers versus metro medians), so a wider within-occupation ratio is expected (BLS OEWS May 2025; nominal wages, not adjusted for cost of living).M-F7
8. Among occupational groups with at least 10 occupations in the study, protective service occupations have the widest typical spread, a median of 1.60 across 12 occupations, and production occupations the narrowest, a median of 1.28 across 27 (BLS OEWS May 2025; nominal wages, not adjusted for cost of living).M-F8
9. The typical spread holds when the minimum number of metros changes: requiring at least 10 reliable metros (389 occupations) gives a median spread of 1.36, and at least 30 (268 occupations) gives 1.35, against 1.36 at the headline minimum of 20 (BLS OEWS May 2025; nominal wages, not adjusted for cost of living).M-F9
10. Other method choices barely move it either: leaving out Puerto Rico's metro areas gives a median spread of 1.35, leaving out the 9 tipped occupations gives 1.35, and a stricter reliability gate (mean-wage PRSE of 5% or less and employment PRSE of 10% or less, 251 occupations) gives 1.34, against 1.36 (BLS OEWS May 2025; nominal wages, not adjusted for cost of living).M-F10

How to read the spread: a spread of 1.36 means the 90th-percentile metro median is 36% above the 10th-percentile metro median for the same occupation. A metro is in the comparison only when its estimate passes the reliability rule. All wages are nominal: no cost-of-living adjustment.

What the spread looks like in dollars

The five widest and five narrowest spreads, shown as the 10th- and 90th-percentile metro medians. This adds the dollar levels the ratio hides.

The spread, defined exactly

spread = P90 / P10 of the occupation's reliable metro annual medians (each metro counted once)
P(p): sort the n medians x[0] ≤ … ≤ x[n−1]; h = (n − 1)·p; P = x[⌊h⌋] + (h − ⌊h⌋)·(x[⌊h⌋+1] − x[⌊h⌋]) (type 7; Excel PERCENTILE.INC)
Across occupations, the median and middle half of the spreads use the same definition.

Audit decisions

Every choice that could change the result, what TryHired decided, why, and what it does to the numbers.

Sensitivity

The headline median spread is 1.36. Every alternative below stays within 0.03 of it; the build fails if one does not.

Reconciliation with the preliminary feasibility check

A preliminary Sprint 017 check reported 340 occupations, a median spread of 1.3555 and a middle half of 1.293 to 1.498. Its per-occupation ratios reproduce exactly (13 of 13 (floor-index percentile x[int(p(n-1))])). Its median and middle half do not: applying its own floor-index percentile to its own 340 rows gives 1.3636 (1.293 to 1.501), and its script was not kept. From its 340 rows to this study's 318:

Why the widest occupation changed: the preliminary widest, Physicians, All Other (2.57), is out of the headline as an 'All Other' group that also has a top-coded median in an otherwise reliable metro. Firefighters, second in the preliminary list (2.172 with its percentile), are the widest here (2.17). This study supersedes the preliminary check: it uses the linear-interpolation percentile defined above and the exclusions in the audit table, which give a median of 1.36.

Limitations

Data dictionary

One row per BLS detailed occupation in the OEWS May 2025 metro file (824 rows): reliable-metro counts, the 10th, 50th and 90th percentiles of reliable metro median annual wages, the metro pay spread (P90/P10) and its sensitivity variants, the lowest and highest metro with every state it spans, the national within-occupation wage spread, and the flags and headline status used in the study.

• Data (CSV, 824 rows)
• Chart (SVG)
• Range chart (SVG)
• Findings with reproduction specs (JSON)
• Source table (CSV)
• Media summary

TryHired, “Metro pay spread: how much the same job's pay differs across U.S. metro areas”, TryHired analysis of BLS OEWS May 2025 metropolitan-area data, 2026. https://tryhired.co/careers/data/metro-pay-spread/

TryHired's analysis table is licensed CC BY 4.0: free to reuse with attribution to TryHired and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (the BLS source data are public domain). Found an error? Report it through the corrections process; corrections are logged on the TryHired data hub.