Skip to content

An independent salary reference. Not affiliated with BLS or any U.S. government agency.

Salary data from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics

Packers And Packagers, Hand Salary: Arecibo, PR vs Joplin, MO-KS

Packers And Packagers, Hand earn a median of $20,230 in Arecibo, PR and $43,120 in Joplin, MO-KS. That is a nominal gap of $22,890 (-53.1%), with Joplin, MO-KS 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.

$20,230
Arecibo, PR median
$43,120
Joplin, MO-KS median
$50,304 after COL
-53.1%
Nominal gap
Joplin, MO-KS leads
Adjusted gap
COL data not available

The story behind the numbers

On raw wages, Joplin, MO-KS pays $22,890 more per year than Arecibo, PR for packers and packagers, hand, a gap of +53.1%.

Cost-of-living data is not available for one or both locations, so we cannot show a purchasing-power view of this comparison. The nominal wage numbers above still reflect real paychecks in each area.

Full breakdown by location

Detailed wage, employment, and cost-of-living figures for packers and packagers, hand in each location. Click through to the full local salary page for percentiles, outlook, and peer areas.

Packers And Packagers, Hand

Arecibo, PR

Median salary
$20,230
Mean salary
$20,400
Employment
90
Location quotient
0.65
Jobs per 1,000
2.5
COL-adjusted median
N/A
Regional Price Parity
N/A

Full Packers And Packagers, Hand page for Arecibo, PR →

Packers And Packagers, Hand

Joplin, MO-KS

Median salary
$43,120
Mean salary
$39,160
Employment
460
Location quotient
1.37
Jobs per 1,000
5.3
COL-adjusted median
$50,304
Regional Price Parity
85.7%

Exact metro RPP match.

Full Packers And Packagers, Hand page for Joplin, MO-KS →

Related pages

Keep digging into packers and packagers, hand 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.