A report by a chief economist for the Indeed Hiring Lab ranks the Brownsville-Harlingen metropolitan area as the highest in annual salaries adjusted for cost of living.
The report, “Where Salaries Go Furthest in 2019: The Small-City Advantage,” by Jed Kolko, a chief economist for the Indeed Hiring Lab, reported Brownsville having an unadjusted salary of $70,000 and an adjusted salary of $83,700. The numbers for the overall study were obtained by calculating the average salaries from all Indeed job postings between April 2018 and April 2019, according to the report which was published Sept. 12.
Brownsville-Harlingen came led 185 U.S. metropolitan areas with at least 250,000 people, followed by Fort Smith, Arkansas-Oklahoma, with an adjusted salary of $82,300, and Huntington-Ashland, West Virginia-Kentucky-Ohio, with an adjusted salary of $81,700.
In a phone interview with The Rider last Thursday, Kolko said adjusted salaries were calculated and based on all job postings on Indeed that had an annual salary.
“First of all, we created what I’m going to call an apples-to-apples comparison across the salaries and that’s because different places have different kinds of jobs,” he said. “It’s not always right to compare, you know, salaries of well-paying tech jobs in some parts of the country to jobs in other parts of the country, where jobs tend to be more, you know, lower paid retail or health care industries.”
The first thing that was done was ensure that the comparisons made were for the same occupations across different places. Then, the average salaries were adjusted by the cost of living in those different places. The data for cost of living was obtained from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Kolko said that for the Brownsville metro area, the average salary was calculated after taking into account the differences of the occupational mix in Brownsville. He also said that the mix of jobs in the city tended to be lower-paying jobs compared to other places.
In the online report, there is an interactive map that can be used to find metro areas with similar adjusted salaries.
The report also presents the areas where adjusted salaries are lowest, such as urban Honolulu, Hawaii, which ranked lowest with an adjusted salary of $56,100, followed by Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina-North Carolina, with an adjusted salary of $57,800 and Miami-Fort Laderale-West Palm Beach, Florida with an adjusted salary of $61,500.
However, the report did mention that many low-paying metros offer “desirable amenities” such as beaches, good weather or cultural offerings.
Brownsville District 1 Commissioner Nurith Galonsky said she was pleased about the ranking, adding that it was a good way of promoting the city.
Galonsky said the pay might not be as high as in bigger cities but cost of living is lower.
“As [college students] graduate, it might be difficult for them to find jobs, especially well-paying jobs, and it might be more tempting to go to the bigger cities because the salaries that they’ll offer are higher, but then you also have to take into account the cost of living will be higher,” she said. “Transportation, whether you’re driving yourself or you’re using public transportation, it will probably take a lot longer to move around than if you have to move around here in the [Rio Grande] Valley. So, it’s just those kinds of things that we have to take into consideration and I think that’s the message that I got from that report.”
Asked what the city is doing to create more job opportunities, the commissioner replied that the city has changed the board of the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corp., which is in charge of economic development.
“I think in the near future, people will see that the focus of the city, in terms of economic development, will be much more aggressive and it’ll be different than what has been done in the past, so that’s a good thing,” Galonsky said.
She also mentioned that the Brownsville Community Improvement Corp. will receive $90,000 from the Economic Development Administration to make the eBridge, which will be an incubator for business and, hopefully, improve salary opportunities in the city.
Galonsky said Brownsville’s economic future is positive due to new and younger leadership that will be more representative of the younger generations.
About how Brownsville’s quality of life compares to bigger cities, Galonsky said that it has a unique identity.
“Within the Valley, Brownsville is different than McAllen, it’s different than Harlingen and the surrounding little towns and … with the addition of more of the hike-and-bike trails, the revitalization of downtown, the activity that’s going to happen in the Mitte Cultural district, all that is going to provide us even more options for entertainment, for [housing], and, well, activities to do around town,” she said.
The commissioner will use the report to better represent Brownsville and be more confident that living in the city is a good thing. She said there is room for improvement, but Brownsville is an ideal place to live.
“It’s reports like this, information like this, that we can use to help promote Brownsville and to reassure people that it’s good to live here,” Galonsky said. “There’s a future that is promising.”
To see the report, visit hiringlab.org/2019/08/27/adjusted-salaries-2019/.
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