Gera US Sector Pay Premium Index — Methodology
What is the GUPPI (sector rollup)?
The Gera US Sector Pay Premium Index (GUPPI) measures how much a US state pays above or below the national employment-weighted average for an entire occupational sector (SOC major group). A positive GUPPI means employers in that state pay a premium for the sector; a negative GUPPI means they pay below the national average.
This is the sector-level companion to the Gera US Pay Premium Index (occupation-level GUPPI). Both use the same BLS OEWS May 2025 source data and the same formula; the difference is the aggregation level — here, entire sectors (SOC major groups) rather than individual 6-digit occupations.
Formula
GUPPI =
(state_sector_median − national_sector_emp_weighted_mean)
───────────────────────────────────────────────── × 100
national_sector_emp_weighted_mean
National baseline (emp-weighted mean)
BLS OEWS does not publish a single national median for major groups in the same key-free flat file as state-level data. GeraJobs computes the national baseline as the employment-weighted mean of all available state medians for the sector:
States with higher employment contribute proportionally more to the national mean. States where BLS suppresses the sector median are excluded from both the numerator and denominator — never zero-filled or interpolated.
Worked example — Management Occupations in California
| Variable | Value |
|---|---|
| California Management Occupations median (BLS OEWS May 2025) | $143,220/yr |
| National emp-weighted mean (all 51 state areas) | $126,800/yr (approx) |
| GUPPI | (143,220 − 126,800) / 126,800 × 100 = +12.9% |
Data source
- Survey period: May 2025 state estimates (major-group rollup)
- Publisher: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Licence: Public domain (U.S. federal government work)
- Underlying flat file: BLS time-series flat file
oe.data.1.AllData(download.bls.gov/pub/time.series/oe) — the same source as the occupation-level GUPPI. - Coverage: 22 SOC major groups × 51 state areas (50 states + DC).
- Last computed: 2026-06-20. Re-dated annually following the BLS OEWS May release.
What GUPPI does NOT capture
- Cost of living: GUPPI is a raw employer wage premium. A state with high GUPPI may still offer lower purchasing power if its cost of living is very high. See the Gera US Real Pay Index for cost-of-living-adjusted rankings.
- Industry mix within the sector: A state may have a high management GUPPI because it hosts many high-paying industries (e.g. tech). The GUPPI reflects the sector-wide median for the state, not any specific industry subsector.
- Occupation mix within the sector: Each SOC major group contains many individual occupations. The sector GUPPI is the major-group median, which weights toward the most common roles. For individual occupation comparisons, see the occupation-level GUPPI.
Reproducibility
All computations are deterministic from the BLS OEWS flat file. The methodology is open (this page), the data is US public domain, and suppression logic is documented above. The formula can be independently verified from the raw BLS data.