In most places in the United States, if you earn a salary of $100,000, you’re doing quite well. But in Seattle, you’re just in the middle of the pack.
In 2023, the median earnings for a full-time, year-round worker living in Seattle were just shy of $101,000, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey. It’s the first time median earnings in Seattle have hit six figures. In 2022, the estimate was about $99,700.
The median is the midway point. In other words, half the full-time workers made more, and half made less. There were roughly 345,000 Seattle residents who worked full time and year-round in 2023.
It’s worth taking a moment to define what the Census Bureau calls “earnings.” I suspect many people see the term and think of it interchangeably with income, but that isn’t the case.
Earnings are limited to what you make at your job, such as salaries, wages, tips, commissions and cash bonuses, before taxes and other deductions. Income is more expansive, including things like interest, dividends, income from rental properties, royalties, public assistance and disability and retirement incomes (Social Security, pensions, etc.).
Unlike income, the Census Bureau calculates median earnings for individuals rather than households. When calculating income, the bureau includes all contributions made by household members 16 years and older. The median household income in Seattle was about $121,000 in 2023.
Seattle ranked second for median full-time earnings among the 50 most-populous U.S. cities. San Francisco was No. 1, at around $110,600. Washington, D.C., ranked third, and just slightly behind Seattle at $100,700.
In all the other large cities, median earnings were well below $100,000. El Paso, Texas, was at the bottom of the list, at around $43,900, which was just slightly lower than Detroit and Memphis, Tenn.
Nationally, the median earnings for a full-time worker was $60,100 in 2023, meaning the median in Seattle was about 68% higher.
Seattle also has one of the highest costs of living in the U.S., so it helps to have a big paycheck. But of course, there are still plenty of folks scraping by here on a lot less than $100,000.
Around 53,800 Seattle residents who work full time, or nearly 16% of workers, earned less than $50,000 in 2023. An additional 115,400, or 33%, made between $50,000 and $99,999.
There was a fairly substantial gender gap in median earnings among Seattle residents. For men who worked full time, the median was about $111,600 and for women it was $90,300. About 57% of Seattle men earned $100,000 or more, compared with 44% of women, among full-time, year-round workers.
Regarding the gender gap in earnings, it’s worth noting that roughly 3 out of 4 tech jobs were held by men in Seattle, according to census data. And tech jobs tend to pay very well.
The median earnings for a Seattle resident holding a full-time job in mathematical-and-computer occupations was $164,900 in 2023, the highest median of any job category. In Seattle, most workers in this job category were software developers.
Legal occupations had the second-highest median, at around $138,300, and management occupations ranked third, at $125,800.
The census data includes all U.S. cities with a population of at least 65,000. While Seattle ranked second among the nation’s 50 largest cities, two smaller cities in Washington had even higher median earnings.
Bellevue had the second-highest median earnings for full-time workers among all U.S. cities with at least 65,000 residents, at around $132,500. Sunnyvale, Calif., which is in Silicon Valley, was No. 1, at $151,100.
Bellevue wasn’t the only Washington city in the Top 10. Kirkland ranked sixth-highest in the nation at $116,300.
Seattle ranked 14th among all U.S. cities with a population of at least 65,000.
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