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Employment & Wages — By Metro
BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, summed across all ~1,029 industry codes on file -- ranked by average weekly wage, not raw employment, since raw employment mostly just tracks county size. One quarter (2025) on file, presented as a single snapshot, not yet a trend.
Ranked by average weekly wage, not total employment -- total employment mostly just tracks how big a place is, which isn't news. A small county at the top isn't a math artifact: it's often one dominant, well-paying employer or industry setting the whole county's average, which is a real thing about that place, not noise to filter out. One quarter of BLS data (2025) is on file, so this is a snapshot, not a trend yet.
42 metros ranked, highest average weekly wage first
# Metro Avg Weekly Wage Employment Establishments Counties
1 Silicon Valley $2,593 3,510,952 396,115 13
2 Seattle $2,258 1,672,103 124,645 3
3 New England $1,955 2,238,656 179,715 7
4 Boulder $1,919 139,594 18,492 1
5 the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) $1,866 2,417,493 218,271 23
6 New York City $1,793 8,028,419 665,414 22
7 Austin $1,729 1,000,410 75,965 5
8 Denver $1,688 1,295,647 129,215 10
9 Dallas $1,616 2,420,399 150,207 7
10 Houston $1,551 2,747,838 174,987 10
11 Greater Los Angeles $1,542 5,447,720 739,333 2
12 Greater San Diego $1,540 1,300,096 136,473 1
13 Greater Chicago $1,497 3,726,229 248,461 13
14 Portland — the Silicon Forest $1,490 938,959 97,717 7
15 Greater Atlanta $1,480 2,136,912 229,682 29
16 the Research Triangle $1,445 843,446 84,693 10
17 Philadelphia $1,432 2,236,168 179,177 11
18 the Twin Cities $1,431 1,458,672 106,976 15
19 Greater Miami / South Florida $1,431 2,529,719 271,886 3
20 Nashville $1,426 774,133 70,719 14
21 Detroit $1,376 1,562,200 111,978 6
22 the Sun Belt — Arizona $1,343 2,500,884 198,089 15
23 Tampa Bay $1,343 1,239,102 117,651 4
24 Pittsburgh $1,332 869,012 65,302 8
25 Greater St. Louis $1,290 956,531 95,912 15
26 Greater Columbus $1,277 811,831 59,305 10
27 Fort Worth $1,266 883,405 59,243 4
28 Greater Cleveland $1,264 798,160 62,082 6
29 Las Vegas $1,237 958,208 69,288 1
30 Greater Orlando $1,223 1,216,381 94,345 4
31 Baton Rouge $1,211 258,068 29,576 10
32 Spokane $1,201 178,118 16,746 2
33 New Orleans $1,191 282,185 38,064 7
34 Greater San Antonio $1,163 813,554 57,939 8
35 Bozeman & Greater Yellowstone $1,140 97,220 21,631 13
36 Upstate New York $1,127 1,787,932 179,854 52
37 Richland $1,108 83,568 7,810 2
38 Northwest Arkansas $1,094 165,519 16,569 3
39 Idaho (Boise) $1,092 538,078 83,494 44
40 Walla Walla $1,051 11,347 1,786 1
41 Monterey $1,009 170,425 15,820 1
42 Youngstown $887 94,529 10,374 2