Agricultural Engineers Salary: Lafayette-West Lafayette, IN vs Oklahoma City, OK
Agricultural Engineers earn a median of $85,410 in Lafayette-West Lafayette, IN and $84,630 in Oklahoma City, OK. That is a nominal gap of $780 (+0.9%), with Lafayette-West Lafayette, IN paying more before any cost-of-living adjustment.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey, May 2024 estimates. Cost-of-living adjustment uses BEA Regional Price Parities, most recent release.
The story behind the numbers
On raw wages, Lafayette-West Lafayette, IN pays $780 more per year than Oklahoma City, OK for agricultural engineers, a gap of +0.9%.
After adjusting for cost of living, the picture flips. Oklahoma City, OK actually offers more purchasing power, effectively paying $2,193 more in national-price-level terms (a +2.3% real gap). The higher nominal wage in the other location is eaten up by higher local prices.
Full breakdown by location
Detailed wage, employment, and cost-of-living figures for agricultural engineers in each location. Click through to the full local salary page for percentiles, outlook, and peer areas.
Agricultural Engineers
Lafayette-West Lafayette, IN
- Median salary
- $85,410
- Mean salary
- $94,380
- Employment
- 50
- Location quotient
- 45.47
- Jobs per 1,000
- 0.5
- COL-adjusted median
- $91,416
- Regional Price Parity
- 93.4%
Exact metro RPP match.
Full Agricultural Engineers page for Lafayette-West Lafayette, IN →
Agricultural Engineers
Oklahoma City, OK
- Median salary
- $84,630
- Mean salary
- $91,950
- Employment
- 110
- Location quotient
- 14.81
- Jobs per 1,000
- 0.2
- COL-adjusted median
- $93,609
- Regional Price Parity
- 90.4%
Exact metro RPP match.
Related pages
Keep digging into agricultural engineers from a different angle.
Common questions about this comparison
What does the cost-of-living adjustment actually do? +
It divides each location's nominal median wage by its Regional Price Parity (RPP), which measures how local prices compare to the national average (100 = national). A wage of $100,000 in an area with RPP 120 has the same purchasing power as roughly $83,000 nationally.
Why would the nominal and adjusted winners disagree? +
High-cost metros often pay higher salaries, but not by enough to fully offset the higher cost of housing, goods, and services. When that happens, the location with the lower nominal wage actually offers more real purchasing power.
What is a location quotient? +
The location quotient measures how concentrated an occupation is in a given area versus the national average. A value of 2.0 means the occupation is twice as common there as nationally. It is a signal of what a metro specializes in.