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Salary data from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics

Loading And Moving Machine Operators, Underground Mining Salary: Louisiana vs Wyoming

Loading And Moving Machine Operators, Underground Mining earn a median of $38,460 in Louisiana and $104,010 in Wyoming. That is a nominal gap of $65,550 (-63.0%), with Wyoming 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.

$38,460
Louisiana median
$43,602 after COL
$104,010
Wyoming median
$112,212 after COL
-63.0%
Nominal gap
Wyoming leads
-61.1%
Adjusted gap
Wyoming leads after COL

The story behind the numbers

On raw wages, Wyoming pays $65,550 more per year than Louisiana for loading and moving machine operators, underground mining, a gap of +63.0%.

After adjusting for cost of living, Wyoming still comes out ahead, with roughly $68,610 of extra purchasing power (+61.1% real gap). Local prices do not reverse the nominal advantage.

Full breakdown by location

Detailed wage, employment, and cost-of-living figures for loading and moving machine operators, underground mining in each location. Click through to the full local salary page for percentiles, outlook, and peer areas.

Loading And Moving Machine Operators, Underground Mining

Louisiana

Median salary
$38,460
Mean salary
$37,560
Employment
50
Location quotient
0.66
Jobs per 1,000
0.0
COL-adjusted median
$43,602
Regional Price Parity
88.2%

Exact state RPP match.

Full Loading And Moving Machine Operators, Underground Mining page for Louisiana →

Loading And Moving Machine Operators, Underground Mining

Wyoming

Median salary
$104,010
Mean salary
$101,590
Employment
50
Location quotient
4.68
Jobs per 1,000
0.2
COL-adjusted median
$112,212
Regional Price Parity
92.7%

Exact state RPP match.

Full Loading And Moving Machine Operators, Underground Mining page for Wyoming →

Related pages

Keep digging into loading and moving machine operators, underground mining 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 state specializes in.