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By the Numbers: The Highest-Paying States For Tech Professionals
Nerval's Lobster writes The average technology professional made $89,450 in 2014, according to Dice's latest salary survey. When it comes to salaries, however, not all states and cities are created equal. Those tech pros living and working in Silicon Valley are the highest-paid in the country, with an average annual salary of $112,610—but that salary grew only 4 percent year-over-year, lagging behind cities such as Portland and Seattle. Dice has built an interactive map that shows where people are making the most (and least). As you click around, note how salary growth is particularly strong in parts of the West, the Northeast, and the South, while remaining stagnant (and even regressing) in some middle states. If anything, the map reinforces what many tech pros have known for years: that more cities and regions are becoming hubs of innovation.
Salary means nothing unless you can compare it to the cost of living in each city. I would suggest a high wage in Silicon Valley is actually lower than many other areas due the the high cost of rent and real estate.
If I participated in the Mod system you would get an +1 insightful.
I would say the real metric is salary/cost of living * some base number like national average cost of living.
So Dallas TX has an average Salary of 91,674 compared to Los Angeles 95,345, however the cost of living for Dallas TX is 73.2% that of Los Angeles (according to http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/ ) so that is the equivalent of 125,268 in LA. Taking what would prima facia be a 3.5k raise is really a 24% (21k) pay decrease.
Plus, I would rather live in Dallas than on the Left Coast.
No Dice...
Minor rant aside, where I live in the mid-west we are rich with tech companies but the cost of living here is oh so very cozy that ~$70,000 here probably equates to ~$140,000 in Silicon Valley and other parts of the country where the cost of living is high.
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