New York Compensation Benchmarks 2026
New York does not pay one premium. Across 266 major occupations it runs +18.0% against national medians on average, but that average hides a spread of 30.6 points between the best-paid and worst-paid occupation groups in this metro.
Which means the shortcut most pay structures rely on, a single New York geographic adjustment factor, is wrong in both directions at once: it underpays the roles this market values and overpays relative to market on the roles it does not.
Computed from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, for New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ (CBSA 35620). 705 occupations carry metro-level data; 266 have New York employment above 5,000 and are used here. Free to read, free to use, no account required.
New York pay by occupation group
Median wage vs national · employment-weighted within group
→ Management at +33.2% and Production at +2.6%. Same metro, same month, 30.6 points apart.
Where New York pays more
Largest premium vs national median
Where New York pays less
Largest discount vs national median
The ten roles New York employs most
Metro median vs national median · annualised at 2,080 hours
| Role | New York | National | Gap | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home Health and Personal Care Aides | $39,686 | $35,797 | +10.9% | 645K |
| Retail Salespersons | $38,272 | $35,422 | +8.0% | 202K |
| Registered Nurses | $119,725 | $97,552 | +22.7% | 198K |
| Janitors and Cleaners, Except Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners | $42,848 | $36,837 | +16.3% | 183K |
| General and Operations Managers | $156,998 | $105,768 | +48.4% | 178K |
| Cashiers | $35,942 | $32,885 | +9.3% | 174K |
| Security Guards | $43,992 | $38,022 | +15.7% | 143K |
| Office Clerks, General | $47,674 | $45,011 | +5.9% | 137K |
| Stockers and Order Fillers | $38,605 | $37,336 | +3.4% | 131K |
| Customer Service Representatives | $49,587 | $44,782 | +10.7% | 126K |
What named New York employers file for the same job
US Department of Labor H-1B filings · FY2026 Q3 (decisions 1 Oct 2025 to 30 Jun 2026) · 50,534 certified New York filings from 11,187 employers
Market data tells you the range; it never tells you who pays what. Employer wage filings do. Taking one role, Software Developers, and only employers with 12+ New York filings in it, the same job in the same metro is filed anywhere from the 11th to above the 90th percentile of the market range on this page:
| Employer | Filings | Median filed | vs New York market |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jane Street Group, LLC | 26 | $300,000 | >P90 |
| D. E. Shaw & Co., L.P. | 16 | $275,000 | >P90 |
| StubHub, Inc. | 21 | $250,000 | >P90 |
| JUMP OPERATIONS, LLC | 15 | $250,000 | >P90 |
| SPOTIFY USA, INC. | 21 | $242,530 | >P90 |
| People Center, Inc. d/b/a Rippling | 12 | $227,500 | >P90 |
| Open Avenues Foundation | 13 | $103,210 | P11 |
| ConsultAdd Inc. | 22 | $103,210 | P11 |
| CITADEL AMERICAS SERVICES LLC | 13 | $103,210 | P11 |
→ 80 percentile points between named employers, inside one role, inside one metro. A candidate moving between two of these companies is not moving within a band; they are changing markets.
Median filed by role · where it sits on the New York OEWS curve
What this data is, and is not. These are base salaries stated on Labor Condition Applications for visa-sponsored roles, floored by prevailing-wage rules: offered pay on a legal form, not a payroll extract, and base only, no bonus or equity. It shows how an employer positions pay for a role. Source: US Department of Labor, Office of Foreign Labor Certification disclosure files, FY2026 Q3 (decisions 1 Oct 2025 to 30 Jun 2026). Employers keyed on federal tax ID; role medians computed only where an employer has 12 or more New York filings in that occupation. Metro membership is by worksite county in the OMB delineation BLS uses for this metro.
Method, and one exclusion worth naming
Each New York occupation is compared to its own national median from the same BLS survey vintage, so the comparison holds the job constant. Group figures are employment-weighted, meaning a group is driven by the roles New York actually employs rather than by an unweighted average across job titles.
Tipped occupations are excluded. BLS reports cash wages for tipped roles, and most of the variation between metros comes from state tip-credit law rather than local pay levels. New York and New Jersey each set their own tip credits and minimums, and both differ from the federal floor, so tipped roles would mostly be measuring state law rather than the metro's pay level. Waiters, bartenders and similar roles are left out for that reason.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, for New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ (CBSA 35620). Employer-reported wages from approximately 1.1 million surveyed establishments. Analysis by CompSignal; the underlying figures are BLS, the comparison and commentary are ours.
Run this on your own roles
Every tool below is free, needs no account, and uses the same BLS data as this analysis.
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