08:16 PM EDT on Friday, April 7, 2006

BY LYNN ARDITI
Journal Staff Writer

Workers in the Providence metro area earn 8 percent more than the national average, but less than in Boston or Hartford, according to a new survey released this week by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The study, which compares occupational pay among the country's 78 metropolitan statistical areas, showed that the Hartford metro area outranked Boston, with pay at 13 percent above the national average, compared with 12 percent in Boston.

Of the four New England metro areas surveyed, only Springfield-area workers earned less than the national average.

Pay is generally higher in New England because of the higher cost of living. In some areas, the difference in pay is outstripped by higher house prices, said the agency's regional economist, Walter J. Marshall.

Housing is the single-biggest expense for any consumer, accounting for roughly 40 percent of all expenses, according to the bureau. (That includes 32 percent for mortgage or rent and taxes, and another 8 percent for fuel, utilities and furnishings.)

For example, while the overall pay in the Providence metro area (which includes Fall River, the Attleboros, Rehoboth, Seekonk, Swansea, Somerset and Westport in Massachusetts) was 8 percent higher than the national average, the median price of a single-family house last year was $293,500, or 41 percent higher than the national median price.

(The metro areas used by the National Association of Realtors to calculate house prices differ slightly from the metro areas that labor officials use to calculate occupational wages.)

In the Boston area, the higher cost of living appears to far outstrip the higher pay. The federal labor bureau's survey for the Boston metro area (which includes Worcester, Lawrence and parts of New Hampshire, Maine and Connecticut) shows wages that are 12 percent above the national average.

Yet, the median price of a single-family house in the Boston area last year was $414,000, more than double the national average median price, according to the National Association of Realtors. (In the housing analysis, the Boston metro area includes New Hampshire but not Connecticut.)

In the Harford area, on the other hand, the differences between pay and cost of living are not nearly as wide. The median price of a single-family house in the Harford area last year was about $253,000, or 22 percent above the national median price. Meanwhile, the pay in the Hartford area ranked 13 percent above the national average in 2004, according to the labor bureau.

Pay levels also vary between metro areas by occupation. For example, service workers in the Providence metro area earned 17 percent more than the national average for workers in the same occupational group, the report said. Service occupations, as defined by the labor bureau, includes jobs such as nursing aides, crossing guards, short-order cooks and firefighters.

Professional and related occupations are 10 percent higher than the national average. The category includes computer programmers, mechanical engineers, nurses, doctors, lawyers and dentists.

The Providence-area pay for loan officers, budget analysts, legislators and company executives -- all of whom fall under the category of management, business and financial occupations -- is just 3 percent higher than the national average.

The report states that the pay for installation, maintenance and repair workers in Providence was 12 percent less than the national average for those same jobs.

The reasons for the differences are not clear. The obvious explanations, such as variation in skill levels or the presence or absence of a labor union, don't apply here, said the labor bureau's Marshall, because the analysis is based on occupational "pay relatives," which are designed to smooth out such variables.

In that respect, he said, the survey provides the first nationwide "dollar for dollar, job for job" comparison by metro area.

larditi@projo.com / (401)277-7335