Comparison of average wages between Spokane and King Counties
August 16, 2011 Leave a comment
A sample of job categories was selected from the Workforce Explorer web site for Industry Trends. A few were dropped out because the job category did not exist in both counties.
- Most Spokane County workers are paid less and professional high skilled private sector workers are paid a lot less.
- While we have come to expect lower pay in Spokane, some of the differences are shocking.
Table of average wages in $s in Spokane versus King County. The difference is shown in the right most column. Bright green is higher. Dark green is “close”. Bright red is -24% or worse difference.
| Occupation | Spokane | King County | Spokane Pay |
| Public Schools/Education | |||
| Teacher | 33207 | 36051 | -8% |
| Elementary Teacher | 58227 | 55921 | 4% |
| Education administrator | 100703 | 102037 | -1% |
| Government workers | |||
| Firefighter | 61987 | 72591 | -15% |
| Police and Sheriff | 64560 | 72205 | -11% |
| Zoologists and wildlife biologists | 57261 | 62254 | -8% |
| Health Care | |||
| Pharmacist | 107792 | 95782 | 13% |
| Registered Nurse | 65735 | 77800 | -16% |
| Physician assistant | 88684 | 100508 | -12% |
| Dentist | 147660 | 159630 | -7% |
| Nursing aides | 24342 | 30917 | -21% |
| Private Sector Jobs | |||
| Science and Technology | |||
| Industrial engineer | 69391 | 83122 | -17% |
| Mechanical engineer | 62946 | 82890 | -24% |
| Software engineer, apps | 70504 | 94071 | -25% |
| Software engineer, systems | 74135 | 99318 | -25% |
| Computer programmer | 54288 | 95782 | -43% |
| Chemist | 50917 | 73321 | -31% |
| Chemical technician | 38653 | 35160 | 10% |
| Law & Business | |||
| Lawyer | 90215 | 118674 | -24% |
| Paralegal | 35344 | 53588 | -34% |
| Marketing manager | 108781 | 125807 | -14% |
| Sales manager | 82235 | 119374 | -31% |
| Advertising/promotions manager | 48198 | 101550 | -53% |
| Architect | 83145 | 72237 | 15% |
| Editors | 58218 | 61492 | -5% |
| Reporters and correspondents | 40346 | 54105 | -25% |
| Labor | |||
| Roofer | 35953 | 46263 | -22% |
| Truck Driver | 39584 | 43626 | -9% |
| Sheet metal worker | 35946 | 57792 | -38% |
| Cooks, all other | 23731 | 29322 | -19% |
| Retail sales | 21486 | 24151 | -11% |
| Bus and truck mechanic | 42489 | 51252 | -17% |
| Hairdresser, stylist, cosmetologist | 33459 | 32702 | 2% |
| Mobile heavy equip. mechanic | 41968 | 59303 | -29% |
Wage data from the State’s Workforce Explorer Industry Trends section.
What It Means
- Education sector pays about the same.
- Government and health care pay some what less.
- Private sector highly educated workers are paid remarkably less.
- Those considering moving to Spokane need to consider the income ramifications of their career sector.
- At present pay levels, there will not be a science or technology cluster in Spokane. With extraordinarily low pay, Spokane will have difficulty attracting high quality scientists and engineers needed to create a regionally or nationally competitive science and technology cluster.
- At present pay levels, the same issue impacts creation of national classes businesses.
- “Editors” average is about the same in both counties. This may account for why there is little news coverage of the chronic low wage problem in Spokane – low wages do not affect them! But reporters’ pay – ick!
Would be interesting to compare pay scales to Benton-Franklin counties, and to Clark County (Vancouver, Wa) area.
Related articles
- Spokane, King County and Washington inflation adjusted household median income charts (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
- STA Votes To Approve Electric Trolley (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
- Spokane’s economic plan du jour (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
- Spokane Airport passenger traffic update (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
- Spokane Median Income Growth Rate (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
- Percent of Spokane High School Seniors Taking the SAT Exam (inlandnw.wordpress.com)
