Sources
Methodology
PayByCity is a static site. Pages are generated at build time from official BLS and BEA releases, with no live agency calls in production.
Cost of living
Metro price levels use Regional Price Parities (RPP) from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (MARPP). US average = 100. This build uses the 2024 vintage and includes:
- All items (headline RPP used for salary equivalence)
- Goods
- Services: housing (rents)
- Services: other
Utilities (LineCode 4) are omitted from the UI in this release. Missing component cells are never invented.
Salary equivalence for a move:
salary_destination = salary_origin × (RPP_destination / RPP_origin)
Wages
Occupational figures are BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) (May 2025): published metro medians, 25th/75th percentiles where available, and OEWS employment. We only generate a wage page when BLS published a metro median. No scaled or imputed fill-ins.
OEWS employment is a published employment estimate for the occupation in the metro, not a count of job openings. National medians for comparison come from the same OEWS release. Wages and RPPs join on CBSA.
Coverage (this build)
- 75 metros (largest by OEWS employment among areas with BEA RPP)
- 150 occupations (largest by national OEWS employment)
- 10,725 published metro wage pairs
- OEWS: May 2025 (released 2026-05-15)
- RPP year: 2024
- Seed generated: 2026-08-23T22:05:08.272Z
Not in scope
- Year-over-year OEWS/RPP series (single vintage only)
- HUD Fair Market Rents / FMR
- State or local income tax models
- Childcare, healthcare premiums, or benefits
Updates
Seed data is rebuilt when newer BLS OEWS or BEA RPP vintages are published. Pages always show the vintage dates above (OEWS period and RPP year).
Official sources: BLS OEWS and BEA Regional Price Parities.
Citation
“PayByCity.” Built from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025) and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities (2024). Generated 8/23/2026.