Studies show that Americans have become less ambitious at work. Could choosing a career
with a proven pay structure make promotion more appealing? Career.io analyzed the pay
gap between junior-level and senior-level workers around the U.S. to see where ambition
pays off the most.
Sure, you’ve heard of “quiet quitting” and maybe even “quiet ambition” — diligently doing
your job each day with a song in your heart while refusing to “chase achievement for
achievement’s sake,” according to Fortune.
But have you heard of “quietly working your way up to a senior position with more pay and
more inspiring challenges?”
Perhaps not. It hasn’t been so bad to be an entry-level employee lately. Labor shortages
have led to faster wage growth among lower-paid and less-educated workers than the
better-paid and more highly educated. And following the pandemic, some two-thirds of
employees cite their top ambition to be “spending time with my family and friends,” with
“being physically/mentally healthy” a close second, according to one survey.
Still, the wage difference between entry-level and experienced-level workers remains
profound in many regions and industries. To find which jobs, metropolitan areas and states
deliver the greatest rewards to career climbers, we analyzed pay rates across nearly 40,000
U.S. job listings.
Methodology Behind Study
Using figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Modeled Wage Estimates, Career.io
calculated the average increase in hourly pay between ‘entry-level’ and ‘experienced-level’
workers for 39,282 occupation listings across 389 U.S. Metro Areas and every U.S. state.
The team calculated the percentage increase in hourly salary per occupation in each location
before calculating the average increase in hourly salary of all occupations per metropolitan
area and per U.S. state.
Finally, they isolated the occupation in each U.S. state and a selection of U.S. Metro Areas,
which enjoyed the greatest increase (%) in hourly pay from an entry-level role to an
experienced-level role.
The data analysis was completed in April 2024 using the latest available estimate from the
Bureau of Labor Statistics for salaries per occupation by experience level, published in
August 2023.
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