Employment & Wages (By Jurisdiction)

Employment & Wages — By Jurisdiction

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.

52 jurisdictions ranked, highest average weekly wage first

#	Jurisdiction	Avg Weekly Wage	Employment	Establishments	Counties
1	District of Columbia (DC)	$2,560	9,702,579	818,515	1
2	New York (NY)	$2,186	135,433,261	10,279,872	62
3	Massachusetts (MA)	$2,071	50,094,581	4,060,269	14
4	Washington (WA)	$1,985	47,543,016	3,642,127	39
5	Connecticut (CT)	$1,907	22,782,292	2,249,384	9
6	California (CA)	$1,872	265,481,007	29,255,016	58
7	Colorado (CO)	$1,706	40,683,405	3,889,067	64
8	New Jersey (NJ)	$1,677	58,535,864	4,503,970	21
9	Illinois (IL)	$1,644	78,372,837	5,062,729	102
10	Virginia (VA)	$1,597	49,644,233	4,143,534	133
11	Delaware (DE)	$1,596	4,429,909	723,807	3
12	Maryland (MD)	$1,589	33,423,987	2,596,743	24
13	Texas (TX)	$1,582	181,194,647	11,624,656	254
14	Minnesota (MN)	$1,531	36,715,884	2,615,275	87
15	New Hampshire (NH)	$1,498	7,849,372	716,502	10
16	Georgia (GA)	$1,466	60,804,276	5,494,772	159
17	Pennsylvania (PA)	$1,434	75,269,728	5,176,249	67
18	Alaska (AK)	$1,432	3,932,486	346,955	30
19	Arizona (AZ)	$1,430	45,887,045	3,190,429	15
20	Oregon (OR)	$1,427	25,323,823	2,503,822	36
21	Florida (FL)	$1,421	140,385,075	12,607,127	67
22	North Carolina (NC)	$1,418	61,327,175	5,194,643	100
23	Rhode Island (RI)	$1,392	6,108,634	712,408	5
24	Utah (UT)	$1,383	25,170,845	2,255,964	29
25	Hawaii (HI)	$1,381	7,469,941	771,315	4
26	Michigan (MI)	$1,377	51,553,193	3,870,028	83
27	Tennessee (TN)	$1,366	39,782,554	2,945,689	95
28	Nevada (NV)	$1,349	22,659,786	1,566,463	17
29	Ohio (OH)	$1,335	70,977,448	4,839,946	88
30	Vermont (VT)	$1,318	3,159,073	512,030	14
31	North Dakota (ND)	$1,315	4,863,562	538,145	53
32	Wisconsin (WI)	$1,301	32,181,676	2,699,511	72
33	Missouri (MO)	$1,288	35,508,922	3,314,872	115
34	Iowa (IA)	$1,274	15,455,004	1,669,790	99
35	Kansas (KS)	$1,266	17,185,309	1,482,065	105
36	Indiana (IN)	$1,265	37,663,507	2,664,672	92
37	Alabama (AL)	$1,262	23,530,570	2,216,665	67
38	Wyoming (WY)	$1,260	2,699,796	468,288	23
39	Maine (ME)	$1,248	7,843,212	917,472	16
40	Kentucky (KY)	$1,233	19,138,204	2,361,345	120
41	Louisiana (LA)	$1,228	21,914,029	2,407,340	64
42	Nebraska (NE)	$1,228	11,922,407	961,380	93
43	South Dakota (SD)	$1,227	4,418,717	607,515	66
44	Oklahoma (OK)	$1,224	19,014,488	1,844,215	77
45	Montana (MT)	$1,203	6,056,627	875,123	56
46	Idaho (ID)	$1,198	11,000,262	1,337,359	44
47	New Mexico (NM)	$1,187	10,951,448	948,725	33
48	South Carolina (SC)	$1,186	24,986,893	2,358,180	46
49	West Virginia (WV)	$1,116	7,400,850	868,163	55
50	Arkansas (AR)	$1,097	14,327,992	1,284,279	75
51	Mississippi (MS)	$990	12,190,493	1,043,475	82
52	Puerto Rico (PR)	$703	11,275,752	833,993	78