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Salary data from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics

Dispatchers, Except Police, Fire, And Ambulance Salary: San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX vs Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN

Dispatchers, Except Police, Fire, And Ambulance earn a median of $44,770 in San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX and $64,250 in Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN. That is a nominal gap of $19,480 (-30.3%), with Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-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.

$44,770
San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX median
$47,268 after COL
$64,250
Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN median
$62,020 after COL
-30.3%
Nominal gap
Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN leads
-23.8%
Adjusted gap
Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN leads after COL

The story behind the numbers

On raw wages, Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN pays $19,480 more per year than San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX for dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance, a gap of +30.3%.

After adjusting for cost of living, Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN still comes out ahead, with roughly $14,753 of extra purchasing power (+23.8% real gap). Local prices do not reverse the nominal advantage.

Full breakdown by location

Detailed wage, employment, and cost-of-living figures for dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance in each location. Click through to the full local salary page for percentiles, outlook, and peer areas.

Dispatchers, Except Police, Fire, And Ambulance

San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX

Median salary
$44,770
Mean salary
$47,420
Employment
1,710
Location quotient
1.12
Jobs per 1,000
1.5
COL-adjusted median
$47,268
Regional Price Parity
94.7%

Exact metro RPP match.

Full Dispatchers, Except Police, Fire, And Ambulance page for San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX →

Dispatchers, Except Police, Fire, And Ambulance

Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN

Median salary
$64,250
Mean salary
$63,430
Employment
10,800
Location quotient
1.76
Jobs per 1,000
2.4
COL-adjusted median
$62,020
Regional Price Parity
103.6%

Exact metro RPP match.

Full Dispatchers, Except Police, Fire, And Ambulance page for Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN →

Related pages

Keep digging into dispatchers, except police, fire, and ambulance 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.