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Salary data from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics

Cooling And Freezing Equipment Operators And Tenders Salary: Lancaster, PA vs St. Louis, MO-IL

Cooling And Freezing Equipment Operators And Tenders earn a median of $52,660 in Lancaster, PA and $49,010 in St. Louis, MO-IL. That is a nominal gap of $3,650 (+7.4%), with Lancaster, PA 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.

$52,660
Lancaster, PA median
$53,594 after COL
$49,010
St. Louis, MO-IL median
$51,542 after COL
+7.4%
Nominal gap
Lancaster, PA leads
+4.0%
Adjusted gap
Lancaster, PA leads after COL

The story behind the numbers

On raw wages, Lancaster, PA pays $3,650 more per year than St. Louis, MO-IL for cooling and freezing equipment operators and tenders, a gap of +7.4%.

After adjusting for cost of living, Lancaster, PA still comes out ahead, with roughly $2,052 of extra purchasing power (+4.0% real gap). Local prices do not reverse the nominal advantage.

Full breakdown by location

Detailed wage, employment, and cost-of-living figures for cooling and freezing equipment operators and tenders in each location. Click through to the full local salary page for percentiles, outlook, and peer areas.

Cooling And Freezing Equipment Operators And Tenders

Lancaster, PA

Median salary
$52,660
Mean salary
$48,360
Employment
50
Location quotient
5.02
Jobs per 1,000
0.2
COL-adjusted median
$53,594
Regional Price Parity
98.3%

Exact metro RPP match.

Full Cooling And Freezing Equipment Operators And Tenders page for Lancaster, PA →

Cooling And Freezing Equipment Operators And Tenders

St. Louis, MO-IL

Median salary
$49,010
Mean salary
$47,760
Employment
100
Location quotient
1.70
Jobs per 1,000
0.1
COL-adjusted median
$51,542
Regional Price Parity
95.1%

Exact metro RPP match.

Full Cooling And Freezing Equipment Operators And Tenders page for St. Louis, MO-IL →

Related pages

Keep digging into cooling and freezing equipment operators and tenders 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.