Top 10 Highest-Paying US States by Average Occupational Median Wage

Top entity in the ranking

The top-ranked record in this dataset is District of Columbia, with a value of 89678.5775862069 on the Avg median wage column. The full top-10 set is shown in the table above; no number here is typed in by hand. When U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes a revision, the ranking and this text update automatically the next time WageDex refreshes its data.

Distribution shape

The gap between the top-ranked record (89678.5775862069) and the 10th-ranked record (78208.76838235294) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.

Aggregate context

Across the full areas population, the aggregate query returns the following summary statistics. These anchors situate the top-10 ranking against the underlying population: how many records exist in total, what the sum of the ranking column is across all qualifying rows, and what the mean per-record value looks like. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied by the aggregate query (records with null or zero values on the ranking column are excluded). The aggregate row is computed by the same database engine that renders the ranking above, against the same snapshot.

Source provenance

The records in this ranking originate from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, specifically the BLS OEWS State Wage Estimates. WageDex compiles this data directly from the agency's published release; there is no static export carrying stale numbers, and an updated dataset propagates to this page within hours. The methodology page documents the source URL, the data vintage, and how the figures are derived.

Why this ranking matters

Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.