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Salary data from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics

Set And Exhibit Designers Salary: Dayton-Kettering-Beavercreek, OH vs San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA

Set And Exhibit Designers earn a median of $85,260 in Dayton-Kettering-Beavercreek, OH and $106,410 in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA. That is a nominal gap of $21,150 (-19.9%), with San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA 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.

$85,260
Dayton-Kettering-Beavercreek, OH median
$91,980 after COL
$106,410
San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA median
$92,040 after COL
-19.9%
Nominal gap
San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA leads
-0.1%
Adjusted gap
San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA leads after COL

The story behind the numbers

On raw wages, San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA pays $21,150 more per year than Dayton-Kettering-Beavercreek, OH for set and exhibit designers, a gap of +19.9%.

After adjusting for cost of living, San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA still comes out ahead, with roughly $60 of extra purchasing power (+0.1% real gap). Local prices do not reverse the nominal advantage.

Full breakdown by location

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

Set And Exhibit Designers

Dayton-Kettering-Beavercreek, OH

Median salary
$85,260
Mean salary
$73,470
Employment
50
Location quotient
1.75
Jobs per 1,000
0.1
COL-adjusted median
$91,980
Regional Price Parity
92.7%

Exact metro RPP match.

Full Set And Exhibit Designers page for Dayton-Kettering-Beavercreek, OH →

Set And Exhibit Designers

San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA

Median salary
$106,410
Mean salary
$100,370
Employment
290
Location quotient
1.74
Jobs per 1,000
0.1
COL-adjusted median
$92,040
Regional Price Parity
115.6%

Exact metro RPP match.

Full Set And Exhibit Designers page for San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA →

Related pages

Keep digging into set and exhibit designers 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.