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Salary data from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics

Protective Service Workers, All Other Salary: Charleston-North Charleston, SC vs Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY

Protective Service Workers, All Other earn a median of $52,500 in Charleston-North Charleston, SC and $61,850 in Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY. That is a nominal gap of $9,350 (-15.1%), with Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY 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.

$52,500
Charleston-North Charleston, SC median
$52,000 after COL
$61,850
Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY median
$62,120 after COL
-15.1%
Nominal gap
Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY leads
-16.3%
Adjusted gap
Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY leads after COL

The story behind the numbers

On raw wages, Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY pays $9,350 more per year than Charleston-North Charleston, SC for protective service workers, all other, a gap of +15.1%.

After adjusting for cost of living, Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY still comes out ahead, with roughly $10,120 of extra purchasing power (+16.3% real gap). Local prices do not reverse the nominal advantage.

Full breakdown by location

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

Protective Service Workers, All Other

Charleston-North Charleston, SC

Median salary
$52,500
Mean salary
$51,090
Employment
70
Location quotient
0.34
Jobs per 1,000
0.2
COL-adjusted median
$52,000
Regional Price Parity
101.0%

Exact metro RPP match.

Full Protective Service Workers, All Other page for Charleston-North Charleston, SC →

Protective Service Workers, All Other

Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY

Median salary
$61,850
Mean salary
$63,920
Employment
80
Location quotient
0.33
Jobs per 1,000
0.2
COL-adjusted median
$62,120
Regional Price Parity
99.6%

Exact metro RPP match.

Full Protective Service Workers, All Other page for Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY →

Related pages

Keep digging into protective service workers, all other 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.