How Far Does Your Salary Go?
IT pay stretches furthest in Texas, Salt Lake City and Atlanta.
The Bay area offers the highest salaries to information technology professionals of any region in the United States. But figure in the extremely high cost of living and northern California becomes one of the least affordable in the country.
That’s the conclusion of a new study by Techies.com, an online career and training center for technology professionals. The report compares average salaries for approximately 100,000 technology professionals in 38 U.S. job markets against the ACCRA’s Cost of Living Index (COLI). The Techies.com study ranks the national affordability averagein Detroitat 100 points; higher scores mean that tech compensation does a better job of outstripping the cost of living.
Texas, Salt Lake City and Atlanta took the top five affordability rankings. Coastal regions with typically high housing, consumer goods and services costs fared poorly. And the Big Apple rated worst of all. The high cost of living and only average compensation gave New York IT managers a bit more than half the affordability of the national average.
An IT pro making $50,000 in Detroit, for example, would need to make more than $90,000 in New York to enjoy the same standard of living. Keeping up that same Detroit lifestyle in Dallas, however, would require a salary of less than $43,000 per year.
Affordability, of course, doesn’t always equate to "desirability." Coastal job markets often offer amenitiesand high concentrations of IT job openingsthat the center of the country can’t match. But the data shows that seemingly lower offers from the Midwest and Southern states may actually be the better financial deal in the long run.
Most Affordable U.S. Cities |
Rank | Job Market | Average Salary | Affordability Index Score | 1 | Dallas | $69,000 | 118 | 2 | Houston | $66,600 | 115 | 3 | Austin | $68,500 | 114 | 4 | Salt Lake City | $67,200 | 112 | 5 | Atlanta | $68,900 | 112 | 6 | Washington DC/ Baltimore, Md. | $70,400 | 112 | 7 | Seattle | $68,400 | 110 | 8 | Phoenix | $66,200 | 109 | 9 | Mid-South* | $58,800 | 109 | 10 | Central Florida** | $64,900 | 108 | 11 | Chicago | $72,000 | 107 | 12 | Portland | $66,800 | 106 | 13 | Denver | $69,900 | 105 | 14 | North Carolina | $66,400 | 105 | 15 | Cincinnati | $62,400 | 105 | 16 | South Florida | $67,700 | 105 | 17 | St. Louis | $60,800 | 104 | 18 | Great Plains | $59,500 | 103 | 19 | Kansas City | $61,500 | 103 | *Includes: Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas. **Includes: Jacksonville, Kennedy Space Center, Tampa, Daytona Beach, etc. | | |
Least Affordable U.S. Cities |
Rank | Job Market | Average Salary | Affordability Index Score | 38 | New York/New Jersey | $76,000 | 52 | 37 | Bay Area | $83,500 | 77 | 36 | Los Angeles | $71,700 | 83 | 35 | Alaska (entire state) | $64,400 | 86 | 34 | San Diego | $68,500 | 89 | 33 | Philadeplphia | $66,900 | 91 | 32 | Boston | $74,100 | 92 | 31 | Pittsburgh | $61,600 | 93 | 30 | Wisconsin | $59,800 | 94 | 29 | Las Vegas | $61,000 | 94 | 28 | Cleveland | $62,300 | 95 | 27 | Mountain States* | $58,400 | 96 | 26 | Sacramento | $68,200 | 97 | 25 | Minnesota (entire state) | $68,900 | 98 | 24 | Columbus, Ohio | $63,400 | 98 | 23 | Detroit | $64,600 | 100 | 22 | Hartford, Conn. | $70,500 | 101 | 21 | Upstate New York** | $62,500 | 101 | 20 | Indianapolis | $59,600 | 103 | *Includes: Idaho, Wyoming and Montana. **Includes: Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Niagara and Albany. | | |