PORTLAND, Ore — The Portland metro area is near the head of the pack in a new measure of earning power for employees.
The typical worker in the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro metro area earned around $40,229 last year, according to the one-year version of the U.S. Census Bureau's 2018 American Community Survey, which was released this fall.
That puts the area between Chicago and Philadelphia among the nation’s 53 major metropolitan areas in a slideshow put together by Buffalo Business First.
SLIDESHOW: Worker earnings in major U.S. metros
Earnings are defined as wages, salaries and self-employment income derived from work. They are not the same as income, which encompasses a much broader range of 42 different sources of money, including interest, pensions, dividends, credits and government assistance. (Earnings are included as one of those 42 components of income.)
The top city in the national rankings posts median annual earnings of $56,065. A median is a midpoint, with half of all local workers being paid more, and the other half less.
Each slide gives the formal name of a metropolitan area, as well as the median earnings for all of its workers (full- and part-time), as well as separate medians for men and women.
The Portland Business Journal is a KGW News partner.