Physicists Salary: Tennessee vs California
Physicists earn a median of $173,660 in Tennessee and $180,900 in California. That is a nominal gap of $7,240 (-4.0%), with California 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.
The story behind the numbers
On raw wages, California pays $7,240 more per year than Tennessee for physicists, a gap of +4.0%.
After adjusting for cost of living, the picture flips. Tennessee actually offers more purchasing power, effectively paying $25,643 more in national-price-level terms (a +15.7% real gap). The higher nominal wage in the other location is eaten up by higher local prices.
Full breakdown by location
Detailed wage, employment, and cost-of-living figures for physicists in each location. Click through to the full local salary page for percentiles, outlook, and peer areas.
Physicists
Tennessee
- Median salary
- $173,660
- Mean salary
- $163,690
- Employment
- 260
- Location quotient
- 0.58
- Jobs per 1,000
- 0.1
- COL-adjusted median
- $189,028
- Regional Price Parity
- 91.9%
Exact state RPP match.
Physicists
California
- Median salary
- $180,900
- Mean salary
- $187,720
- Employment
- 6,220
- Location quotient
- 2.49
- Jobs per 1,000
- 0.3
- COL-adjusted median
- $163,385
- Regional Price Parity
- 110.7%
Exact state RPP match.
Related pages
Keep digging into physicists 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.