BLS OEWS wage distributions for every U.S. state, sliced by 2-digit SOC occupational major group. Currently showing: Sales.
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
Washington
$45,700
Lowest Median
Mississippi
$28,250
OEWS Vintage
May 2023
BLS state tables
| Rank | State | Median (P50) ▼ |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Washington | $45,700[1] |
| 2 | Colorado | $45,550[1] |
| 3 | New York | $43,900[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 | District of Columbia | $43,730[1] |
| 5 | New Jersey | $41,890[1] |
| 6 | California | $41,620[1] |
| 7 | Massachusetts | $40,160[1] |
| 8 | Hawaii | $37,920[1] |
| 9 | Minnesota | $37,870[1] |
| 10 | Oregon | $37,740[1] |
| 11 | New Hampshire | $37,570[1] |
| 12 | Alaska | $37,540[1] |
| 13 | Rhode Island | $37,530[1] |
| 14 | Illinois | $37,490[1] |
| 15 | Vermont | $37,070[1] |
| 16 | Utah | $37,020[1] |
| 17 | Connecticut | $36,870[1] |
| 18 | Maine | $36,770[1] |
| 19 | Arizona | $36,600[1] |
| 20 | Montana | $36,520[1] |
| 21 | Wisconsin | $36,470[1] |
| 22 | North Dakota | $36,340[1] |
| 23 | Delaware | $36,190[1] |
| 24 | Florida | $36,060[1] |
| 25 | Idaho | $36,020[1] |
| 26 | Virginia | $35,980[1] |
| 27 | Maryland | $35,940[1] |
| 28 | South Dakota | $35,850[1] |
| 29 | Michigan | $35,820[1] |
| 30 | North Carolina | $35,670[1] |
| 31 | Pennsylvania | $35,570[1] |
| 32 | Nebraska | $35,300[1] |
| 33 | Texas | $35,200[1] |
| 34 | Kansas | $34,980[1] |
| 35 | Indiana | $34,920[1] |
| 36 | Wyoming | $34,910[1] |
| 37 | Nevada | $34,730[1] |
| 38 | Ohio | $34,730[1] |
| 39 | Missouri | $34,000[1] |
| 40 | Georgia | $33,920[1] |
| 41 | Iowa | $33,860[1] |
| 42 | Tennessee | $33,440[1] |
| 43 | South Carolina | $32,960[1] |
| 44 | New Mexico | $32,000[1] |
| 45 | Kentucky | $31,600[1] |
| 46 | Oklahoma | $31,170[1] |
| 47 | Alabama | $31,150[1] |
| 48 | Arkansas | $30,370[1] |
| 49 | Louisiana | $29,700[1] |
| 50 | West Virginia | $28,610[1] |
| 51 | Mississippi | $28,250[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.