Data Sources & Methodology

Wages: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics

Salary percentiles, median pay and employment counts come from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program, May 2025 estimates, for the nation and for each metropolitan and nonmetropolitan area BLS publishes. National figures use the cross-industry, all-ownership estimate for each occupation. Metro areas follow the delineations BLS uses for that release; areas whose names changed in newer delineations are merged under their current name, and old addresses redirect to it.

Where BLS publishes no estimate for an occupation in a metro area, the page shows the occupation's unscaled national BLS percentiles for reference, clearly labeled as national benchmarks rather than local estimates, and is not submitted to search engines. Detailed salary pages for occupations with very small local employment are also kept out of search results, because BLS estimates for small groups are the least reliable.

Taxes and take-home pay

Paycheck figures apply 2026 federal income tax brackets and standard deductions, Social Security (6.2% up to the 2026 wage base of $184,500) and Medicare (1.45%, plus 0.9% above $200,000 single / $250,000 married filing jointly), 2026 state income tax brackets, standard deductions, personal exemptions and credits for all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico (state figures follow the Tax Foundation’s 2026 state rate table, checked against state revenue departments’ 2026 forms; Puerto Rico wages replace federal income tax with Puerto Rico income tax), California SDI, and 2026 local income taxes: Maryland and Indiana county taxes, Pennsylvania earned income and local services taxes, Iowa school-district surtaxes, Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, Missouri and Alabama city taxes, West Virginia municipal service fees, New York City’s resident tax, Denver’s occupational privilege tax, and Oregon’s statewide transit tax and Portland-area taxes on higher incomes. Each metro uses the local taxes of its principal city (in Maryland, Indiana and Iowa, that city’s county or principal school district); other towns in the same metro can have a different rate or none. Ohio school-district income taxes and Kentucky county and smaller-city occupational taxes outside principal cities are not included. Maine’s standard deduction and personal exemption phase-outs, New York’s tax benefit recapture, Connecticut’s personal tax credits and Oregon’s subtraction for federal income tax are included. Pre-tax 401(k) and HSA contributions reduce taxable wages; head-of-household filers get each state’s head-of-household brackets, standard deduction and exemption where the state sets them (Puerto Rico uses its single schedule). Results are annual estimates divided evenly across pay periods; actual withholding depends on your W-4, credits, other income and employer payroll settings.

Rents: HUD Fair Market Rents

Rent figures are the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Fair Market Rents for fiscal year 2027 (40th percentile gross rents, including utilities, for studio to four-bedroom units). Affordability uses HUD's guideline that housing should cost no more than 30% of gross income.

Family budgets and living wages: EPI Family Budget Calculator

Household budgets come from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) Family Budget Calculator, 2026 edition (2025 dollars): housing, food, transportation, health care, child care, other necessities and taxes for ten family types. Metro areas EPI does not publish use the budget for their principal county.

The living wage we show is the hourly wage a full-time worker (2,080 hours a year) needs to cover the EPI single-adult budget, or the two-adult, one-child budget per adult for families.

Cost-of-living index

Our cost-of-living index compares a metro's EPI single-adult annual budget with a $46,000 national reference budget: index = budget ÷ 46,000 × 100, with a floor of 75 (100 = national reference). Puerto Rico and a few small areas have no EPI budget; their cost-of-living index is marked Not published and their cost-of-living pages are not submitted to search engines.

Career ladders and related occupations

Career ladders map five typical career stages to the occupation's own BLS wage percentiles (10th, 25th, median, 75th and 90th). Stage titles are written by MetroBasis; the typical experience ranges follow the occupation's O*NET Job Zone, and the entry-level education requirement is the most common one reported in O*NET 31.0.

Related occupations come from O*NET's related-occupations data. The skill overlap percentage is the correlation between the two occupations' O*NET importance ratings for knowledge, abilities and work activities, rescaled to 0–100. A few “All Other” occupations that O*NET does not relate are matched to their closest sibling occupations by MetroBasis.

Updates and limitations

• We update the data when new editions are released (BLS OEWS each spring, HUD Fair Market Rents each fall, EPI and O*NET periodically).
• The data is compiled and reviewed by Metro Basis; it was last updated November 2, 2026, and each data page shows this date under its heading.
• Figures are rounded estimates and may differ from what a specific employer pays or what you owe in tax.
• Nothing on MetroBasis is financial, tax, legal or career advice. See our Terms of Use.

Attribution

This site incorporates information from O*NET Web Services by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. Used under the CC BY 4.0 license; MetroBasis has modified the data as described on this page.

Wage, employment and rent data are published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Family budget data: Economic Policy Institute, Family Budget Calculator. Questions about the method: [email protected].