Salary by State and Occupation (2023)

BLS OEWS wage distributions for every U.S. state, sliced by 2-digit SOC occupational major group. Currently showing: Community & Social Service.

Written by Jere SalmistoReviewed by CalcFi EditorialLast reviewed 2026-05-21Methodology

The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics^[1]program surveys ~200,000 establishments semi-annually and publishes state-level wage percentiles (P10, P25, P50, P75, P90) plus employment counts. Occupational groupings use the 2018 Standard Occupational Classification^[2] — this page exposes the 20 major (2-digit) groups. Pick one below.

Switch occupational major group

11 · Management 13 · Business & Financial Ops 15 · Computer & Mathematical 17 · Architecture & Engineering 19 · Life, Physical & Social Sciences 21 · Community & Social Service

Highest Median

District of Columbia

$68,490

Lowest Median

West Virginia

$43,050

OEWS Vintage

May 2023

BLS state tables

Wage by State — Community & Social Service

Rank	State	Median (P50) ▼	P10	P90	Employment
1	District of Columbia	$68,490^[1]	$44,430	$110,570	11,190
2	New Jersey	$61,020^[1]	$37,780	$102,110	70,840
3	California	$60,220^[1]	$38,650	$111,820	360,300
4	Alaska	$60,120^[1]	$38,370	$95,800	7,360
5	Washington	$59,710^[1]	$41,130	$95,580	60,240
6	New York	$59,660^[1]	$36,920	$100,690	179,900
7	Connecticut	$59,180^[1]	$36,510	$98,420	35,000
8	Massachusetts	$58,870^[1]	$37,960	$94,030	80,770
9	North Dakota	$58,590^[1]	$37,630	$79,570	5,400
10	Maryland	$56,910^[1]	$35,540	$97,670	48,420
11	Colorado	$56,450^[1]	$38,730	$84,780	49,770
12	Minnesota	$56,370^[1]	$38,480	$85,260	57,930
13	Oregon	$56,200^[1]	$37,960	$93,210	49,150
14	Wisconsin	$53,600^[1]	$35,680	$79,390	41,000
15	New Mexico	$52,850^[1]	$33,480	$83,180	14,040
16	Rhode Island	$52,580^[1]	$36,140	$94,940	9,870
17	Virginia	$52,460^[1]	$35,620	$83,950	63,180
18	Nevada	$52,150^[1]	$35,810	$88,320	15,580
19	Wyoming	$51,970^[1]	$32,460	$84,120	4,200
20	New Hampshire	$51,660^[1]	$37,170	$80,800	11,190
21	Idaho	$51,110^[1]	$36,520	$77,530	10,850
22	Texas	$50,680^[1]	$33,600	$79,820	142,710
23	North Carolina	$50,600^[1]	$34,980	$74,580	61,440
24	Hawaii	$50,490^[1]	$34,760	$87,910	11,940
25	Vermont	$50,110^[1]	$37,600	$77,660	8,560
26	Ohio	$50,090^[1]	$34,310	$82,540	84,090
27	Pennsylvania	$50,010^[1]	$35,020	$80,760	107,430
28	Arizona	$49,970^[1]	$36,080	$78,940	45,400
29	Illinois	$49,670^[1]	$36,590	$87,210	90,050
30	Delaware	$49,610^[1]	$35,890	$81,640	8,240
31	Michigan	$49,570^[1]	$34,020	$77,670	71,760
32	Maine	$49,500^[1]	$37,880	$77,480	12,930
33	Georgia	$48,490^[1]	$31,200	$90,950	55,740
34	Utah	$48,420^[1]	$32,330	$93,960	25,340
35	Iowa	$48,210^[1]	$32,610	$77,630	21,240
36	Nebraska	$48,190^[1]	$35,580	$74,920	13,880
37	Louisiana	$48,110^[1]	$28,760	$78,760	27,450
38	Florida	$48,060^[1]	$32,960	$78,920	120,760
39	South Carolina	$47,610^[1]	$30,680	$76,620	25,120
40	Tennessee	$47,530^[1]	$31,610	$73,980	42,220
41	Indiana	$47,490^[1]	$34,330	$75,470	49,490
42	South Dakota	$47,380^[1]	$35,130	$65,380	7,530
43	Kansas	$47,260^[1]	$32,200	$68,660	20,010
44	Alabama	$46,980^[1]	$29,050	$74,000	21,780
45	Arkansas	$46,160^[1]	$30,120	$76,820	14,850
46	Montana	$46,040^[1]	$30,030	$72,790	10,540
47	Oklahoma	$45,960^[1]	$29,660	$76,330	27,020
48	Kentucky	$45,490^[1]	$31,160	$77,220	31,740
49	Missouri	$45,450^[1]	$33,380	$72,570	43,870
50	Mississippi	$43,450^[1]	$25,690	$65,780	16,020
51	West Virginia	$43,050^[1]	$28,740	$67,850	12,830

P10 / P50 / P90 are annual wage percentiles from BLS OEWS. Employment is the state-level headcount for the SOC major group at the OEWS publication date. A few small-employment cells may be suppressed by BLS for confidentiality.

How to Read OEWS

Why Percentiles, Not Averages

OEWS reports wage percentiles because the wage distribution for most occupational groups is right-skewed — a handful of high earners pull the arithmetic mean well above the median. P50 is the experience the median worker actually has; P10 is the bottom decile; P90 is the top decile (but not the very top, which BLS caps at $240k).

Cross-Check With Cost of Living

A $110k Computer & Mathematical median in San Francisco is not the same as a $110k median in Austin — the BEA housing RPP is ~2× higher on the coast. Always pair OEWS with BEA RPP before making a relocation decision.

Major-Group vs Detailed SOC

This page uses 2-digit SOC major groups (e.g., 15-0000“Computer and Mathematical”). BLS also publishes the full 6-digit detailed SOC (e.g., 15-1252Software Developers) with narrower wage bands — those sit in the state's detailed OEWS table, which CalcFi's pSEO salary pages consume separately.

How we compute this — methodology

This page calls listStateSalary()from CalcFi's data repository. Each StateSalaryContext row has a record-level source: SourceRef (all wage fields come from the same OEWS release), plus a nested occupations[] array keyed by SOC 2-digit code. The query-string ?soc= filters to one row per state for the chosen occupational group.

Refresh cadence:BLS publishes OEWS state tables annually in May (for the previous May survey period). That's the slowest of CalcFi's data feeds — expect a one-year lag. The retrievedAt date shown above reflects the last ETL fetch, not the vintage year itself (shown in the highlights tile).

Known limits:some small employment cells are suppressed by BLS (marked “—”). OEWS covers non-farm wage and salary workers and excludes the self-employed — so Schedule-C and 1099 income isn't in these numbers.

Sources

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) — OEWS state-level wage estimates, May 2023 vintage; P10 / P50 / P90 annual wages. www.bls.gov/oes/. Retrieved 2026-05-21. License: Public domain (U.S. federal government).
U.S. Office of Management and Budget — Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) — 2018 SOC system — 2-digit major groups used throughout this page. www.bls.gov/soc/. Retrieved 2026-05-21.

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