Workers in the Washington-Baltimore area are paid 7 percent more on average than the national average to do the same kinds of jobs, tying the pay levels of employees in Los Angeles but falling behind those found in 10 other metropolitan areas, according to a report released this week by a branch of the U.S. Department of Labor.
San Francisco-area workers were paid most, earning an average 19 percent more than the national average. New York, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, Minneapolis and San Diego all ranked higher than the Washington-Baltimore area, as did four smaller cities.
Office and administrative support workers in the Washington-Baltimore area make 11 percent more money than the national average, and installation, maintenance and repair workers make 16 percent more money than average, the report said.
Area employees in the management, business and financial sector make only 3 percent more than the national average, according to BLS.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics measured 2006 pay levels for private industry and state and local government jobs in 78 metropolitan areas. The agency did not include data for military personnel or for the self-employed, nor did it include federal employee data, as the report is used to help officials set federal pay levels, a BLS representative said.
Stephen Fuller, head of the George Mason Center for Regional Analysis, said that leaving federal employee wages out of the statistics skews the agency’s numbers for Washington, since the federal sector comprises 12 percent of the D.C. area’s employment base and generally pays well.
Including Baltimore’s numbers in the region’s statistics also lowers D.C.’s average wages in the report, Fuller said.
“Our household income is 32 percent higher than the national average,” Fuller said, referring to the D.C. metro area that does not include Baltimore. “Part of that is we have more workers per household than anywhere in the nation. The other part is that we have higher wages.”
A report this month by the Brookings Institution ranked the D.C. area fourth out of 363 metropolitan areas in its number of quality and jobs.
