BLS OEWS wage distributions for every U.S. state, sliced by 2-digit SOC occupational major group. Currently showing: Legal.
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.
Highest Median
District of Columbia
$183,500
Lowest Median
South Carolina
$61,980
OEWS Vintage
May 2023
BLS state tables
| Rank | State | Median (P50) ▼ |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia | $183,500[1] |
| 2 | New York | $132,240[1] |
| 3 | California | $130,840[1] |
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).
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.
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.
Household Income by State
Compare with wage-only OEWS
Cost of Living by State
Essential context for any wage
State Economic Snapshot
Unemployment + labor force participation
States With No Income Tax
Take-home pay impact
Paycheck Calculator
Convert gross to net for any state
Salary-to-Hourly Calculator
OEWS annual → hourly conversion
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.
CalcFi does not sell data. If you spot an error, email hello@calcfi.app with the URL and the correct figure.
| 4 | Massachusetts | $112,580[1] |
| 5 | Colorado | $110,660[1] |
| 6 | Washington | $109,710[1] |
| 7 | Delaware | $108,690[1] |
| 8 | New Jersey | $107,830[1] |
| 9 | Connecticut | $106,350[1] |
| 10 | Virginia | $105,820[1] |
| 11 | Minnesota | $103,260[1] |
| 12 | Maryland | $101,950[1] |
| 13 | Illinois | $100,420[1] |
| 14 | Texas | $96,340[1] |
| 15 | Rhode Island | $94,450[1] |
| 16 | Alaska | $94,220[1] |
| 17 | Oregon | $92,270[1] |
| 18 | Nevada | $91,420[1] |
| 19 | Pennsylvania | $89,770[1] |
| 20 | South Dakota | $88,540[1] |
| 21 | Wyoming | $88,540[1] |
| 22 | Ohio | $88,210[1] |
| 23 | New Hampshire | $86,440[1] |
| 24 | Missouri | $82,720[1] |
| 25 | Indiana | $82,040[1] |
| 26 | Tennessee | $81,970[1] |
| 27 | Nebraska | $81,760[1] |
| 28 | Hawaii | $81,430[1] |
| 29 | Arizona | $80,830[1] |
| 30 | Michigan | $80,610[1] |
| 31 | Georgia | $80,270[1] |
| 32 | North Dakota | $80,200[1] |
| 33 | Florida | $79,470[1] |
| 34 | Vermont | $79,340[1] |
| 35 | Louisiana | $79,250[1] |
| 36 | Oklahoma | $76,460[1] |
| 37 | Maine | $75,700[1] |
| 38 | Kansas | $75,680[1] |
| 39 | Wisconsin | $75,320[1] |
| 40 | North Carolina | $75,270[1] |
| 41 | Utah | $74,750[1] |
| 42 | Alabama | $74,050[1] |
| 43 | New Mexico | $73,630[1] |
| 44 | Idaho | $71,790[1] |
| 45 | Montana | $71,270[1] |
| 46 | Kentucky | $70,200[1] |
| 47 | Iowa | $68,650[1] |
| 48 | West Virginia | $67,140[1] |
| 49 | Arkansas | $66,350[1] |
| 50 | Mississippi | $62,070[1] |
| 51 | South Carolina | $61,980[1] |
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.