Weekly Economic Trends and Indicators

In this third post in a series on various aspects of the Quad Cities economy, we look at wages and the cost of living. Last week, we examined the employment share of different occupational groups in the Quad Cities labor market. The same page at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) also reports the mean hourly wage for all occupational groups. This data is from May 2021.

Though there are a few exceptions, mean wages for most occupational groups are somewhat lower in the Quad Cities than the national average. Table 1 below shows the mean wages for those occupational groups that are most highly concentrated in the Quad Cities.

Elsewhere on the BLS website is a more detailed breakdown of specific occupations and their mean and median hourly and annual wages. Table 2 lists representative occupations from each of the broad categories above.

The “location quotient” refers to how over or under-represented that occupation is here compared to the national average. For example, the concentration of industrial machinery mechanics is 1.63 times the national average.

While the wages for these occupations are somewhat lower than the national average, this is balanced by the fact that the cost of living is lower in the Quad Cities. According to the Council for Community and Economic Research, as of the third quarter of last year, the cost of living was about 11% lower here than the national average with housing and utilities being the most important sources of cost savings. As a result, wages adjusted for cost of living for the Quad Cities’ most concentrated occupations are comparable to or higher than the national average.

Next week: First Quarter U.S. Gross Domestic Product