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Salary data from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics

Miscellaneous Construction And Related Workers Salary: Trenton-Princeton, NJ vs Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI

Miscellaneous Construction And Related Workers earn a median of $59,570 in Trenton-Princeton, NJ and $73,760 in Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI. That is a nominal gap of $14,190 (-19.2%), with Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI 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.

$59,570
Trenton-Princeton, NJ median
$57,734 after COL
$73,760
Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI median
$76,091 after COL
-19.2%
Nominal gap
Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI leads
-24.1%
Adjusted gap
Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI leads after COL

The story behind the numbers

On raw wages, Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI pays $14,190 more per year than Trenton-Princeton, NJ for miscellaneous construction and related workers, a gap of +19.2%.

After adjusting for cost of living, Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI still comes out ahead, with roughly $18,357 of extra purchasing power (+24.1% real gap). Local prices do not reverse the nominal advantage.

Full breakdown by location

Detailed wage, employment, and cost-of-living figures for miscellaneous construction and related workers in each location. Click through to the full local salary page for percentiles, outlook, and peer areas.

Miscellaneous Construction And Related Workers

Trenton-Princeton, NJ

Median salary
$59,570
Mean salary
$59,140
Employment
80
Location quotient
1.46
Jobs per 1,000
0.3
COL-adjusted median
$57,734
Regional Price Parity
103.2%

Exact metro RPP match.

Full Miscellaneous Construction And Related Workers page for Trenton-Princeton, NJ →

Miscellaneous Construction And Related Workers

Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI

Median salary
$73,760
Mean salary
$68,450
Employment
100
Location quotient
0.56
Jobs per 1,000
0.1
COL-adjusted median
$76,091
Regional Price Parity
96.9%

Exact metro RPP match.

Full Miscellaneous Construction And Related Workers page for Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI →

Related pages

Keep digging into miscellaneous construction and related workers 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.