Analysis
Findings from the wage data, published when there is something to report rather than on a schedule. Every figure is reproducible from the dataset.
The highest-paying state usually is not the best-paying state
For 240 of 587 occupations — 40.9% — the state that pays most stops being the leader once you account for what things cost there.
In 379 of 391 occupations, the average earner is not a typical earner
Mean pay exceeds median pay almost everywhere. How far it exceeds it says something about how the job is paid — commission at one end, pay scales at the other.
The jobs that barely exist outside one state
Political Scientists in District of Columbia are 123 times more concentrated than the national rate. At the extremes a location quotient stops describing a labour market and starts describing a single city.
Everything here is derived from the published dataset, which is public domain and free to check.