Data checked August 13, 2026 · source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics

For journalists and researchers

Everything on this page is free to quote. You do not need our permission, you do not need to ask, and we will not send you a follow-up email.

Findings you can use today

These are calculated from the May 2025 OEWS release across 49 metro areas. We have not found anywhere else publishing the metro-level spread for these trades in one place.

1. The same trade pays 156% more in one US metro than another

Equipment Operators earn a median $59.97 an hour in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont and $23.41 in Oklahoma City — a 2.56× gap for the same job title.

2. Chicago pays trades better than San Francisco or New York

Averaged across all eight trades we track, Chicago-Naperville-Elgin ranks #2 of 49 at $41.21 an hour — above San Francisco ($40.00) and New York ($36.31). Chicago roofers are the highest paid in the country at $39.47 an hour, ahead of every coastal metro. This runs against the usual coastal-cities-pay-most assumption, and it holds because Chicago's building trades are heavily unionised.

49 metro areas where BLS publishes at least six of our eight trades. Top to bottom: 1.72×.

3. What the worker earns and what the customer pays are two different numbers

This is the calculation almost no cost guide performs. A wage is not a billed rate: the shop also pays payroll tax, workers' compensation, insurance, the truck, fuel, tools, dispatch and unbilled drive time. We model the difference as 1.3× labour burden and 1.7–2.45× overhead and profit — combined, 2.21× to 3.19×.

Please attribute this one carefully. The wages are government data. The multiplier is our assumption, published in full on the methodology page. If you quote a billed rate, say it is a FieldPricing estimate, not a BLS figure.

How to cite us

A link is appreciated and not required. We will never ask you to add one, and we will never follow up asking you to change how you credited us.

Download the data

Everything above, as CSV. No registration, no email address, no rate limit. Use it in a chart, a spreadsheet, a paper, or a story — commercial use included.

• trade-wages-by-metro.csv — 383 rows. Median hourly wage and estimated billed rate, eight trades × US metro areas.
• trade-wages-percentiles.csv — 24 rows. 25th, 50th and 75th percentile wage for each trade, US-wide.
• job-cost-lines.csv — 105 rows. Line-item breakdown for 14 jobs: equipment, parts, labour, permit, disposal.
• job-cost-summary.csv — 16 rows. Headline range and labour hours for every job we price.
• README.txt — column definitions, sources, and the limitations you should read first.

Need a cut we have not published — a single metro, a single trade, a different grouping? Ask and we will generate it. There is no charge and no conditions attached.

What we can help with

• A number for a specific metro and trade — we have 49 metro areas × eight trades, and can pull any cell with its BLS series ID.
• Why a quote looks high — we break jobs into equipment, parts, labour hours, permit and disposal, each sourced. See the job cost pages.
• The wage-to-invoice gap — the arithmetic above, for any trade.

What we cannot help with: anything we have not calculated. We will tell you we do not know rather than guess, and we will say when a figure is uncertain.

Known limitations — read before citing

We publish these on the methodology page in full. The short version: OEWS is a sample-based survey, not a census; metros where BLS suppressed a figure are omitted rather than estimated; self-employed workers are excluded, which understates owner-operator earnings; and our billed-rate multiplier is an editorial judgement, not a measurement.

If you need a line describing us

Copy either of these rather than writing your own. Both are accurate as of the date at the top of this page.

Contact

Mingo — contact page. One person, in a time zone that is probably not yours. If you are on deadline, say so in the subject line and I will answer first.