A creative salary can look strong on paper and still lose much of its value to local prices. At the same time, moving somewhere cheaper does not always leave a worker better off if local creative wages are also lower.

To identify where creative pay has the greatest purchasing power, Giggster analyzed May 2025 annual median wages for seven selected creative occupations: art directors, graphic designers, producers and directors, writers and authors, editors, photographers, special effects artists and animators, across 30 selected major U.S. metro areas.

The Real Paycheck Index ranks metros by their cost-adjusted creative-wage benchmark. To make the impact of local prices easier to understand, we use a standardized illustrative salary of $75,000 and show how its purchasing power changes across locations. Separate comparisons show which metros gain or lose once local prices are applied and which markets lead for individual creative careers.

View our full methodology and breakdown here.

Key Takeaways

• San Francisco, New York City, and Los Angeles take the top three positions even though local prices are 13% to 16% above the U.S. average.

• San Francisco ranks first when local creative wages are included but last when every metro receives the same $75,000 salary. Pittsburgh leads the fixed-salary comparison but ranks only 24th on the main index.

• Real creative pay remains above $75K in half of the markets studied. Fifteen of the 30 metros clear that purchasing-power benchmark, ranging from high-wage coastal hubs to near-national-cost markets such as Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, and Austin.

• West Coast metros lead five of the seven occupation rankings, but New York City ranks first for editors, and Washington leads writers and authors. 

San Francisco Still Wins—Where Creative Pay Goes Furthest

What the data says:

• San Francisco remains No. 1, with an adjusted creative-wage benchmark of $101K, the only result above $100K despite local prices being 16% higher than average.

• The top-to-bottom gap reaches $41K, from $101K in San Francisco to $60K in Phoenix. Phoenix scores 59 points on the index, meaning its result is about 59% of the study leader’s.

• All 10 leading metros have average or higher price levels, while Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and San Antonio, where prices are about 5% below average, reach adjusted creative-wage benchmarks of only $67.8K, $65.6K, and $65.9K, respectively.

The Same $75K Is Worth $14.4K More in Pittsburgh Than in San Francisco

What the data says:

• Pittsburgh and San Antonio give the same salary the strongest purchasing power. A fixed $75K is worth about $79.2K in both metros, adding roughly $4.2K in national-price-equivalent value. St. Louis follows at $78.9K.

• The same $75K is worth approximately $79.2K in Pittsburgh but only $64.9K in San Francisco, where higher prices reduce its purchasing power by about $10.1K.

• Only seven metros increase the salary’s value above $75K. Each has prices between 1% and 5% below the U.S. average. By contrast, San Francisco, Miami, Los Angeles, and New York City reduce the same salary to between $64.9K and $66.6K.

Where Local Prices Rewrite the Creative Pay Map

What the data says:

• Atlanta gets the largest affordability boost, climbing seven places from No. 14 to No. 7. Charlotte rises six positions, while St. Louis gains five.

• Miami takes the biggest price penalty, falling nine places from No. 19 to No. 28 as its 14%-higher local prices are applied. Riverside drops six positions, while Sacramento and Denver each fall four.

• Seven of the 10 biggest gainers have average or below-average prices, while nine of the 10 largest declines occur in above-average-price metros. New York City is a notable exception, rising from No. 3 to No. 2 despite prices being 13% higher than average.

The Best Metro Depends on the Creative Career

What the data says:

• West Coast metros' top five occupation rankings: San Francisco leads for art directors and graphic designers, Los Angeles for producers and directors, Portland for photographers, and Seattle for special effects artists and animators.

• Editors have the largest geographic gap, at $61.3K. New York City’s adjusted annual median is $90.7K, compared with $29.4K in Houston. Photographers have the narrowest spread, at $21.8K between Portland and Orlando.

• Houston has the lowest adjusted median for producers and directors at $64.8K and editors at $29.4K. Miami ranks lowest for graphic designers at $54.2K and special effects artists and animators at $65.3K.

Key Terms

Nominal Creative-Wage Benchmark

The unweighted median of the available annual median wages for seven selected creative occupations in a metro.

Cost-Adjusted Creative Wage

The nominal creative-wage benchmark after adjusting for the metro’s Regional Price Parity. It shows the benchmark’s estimated purchasing power at national-average prices, not take-home pay.

Real Paycheck Index

A score comparing each metro’s cost-adjusted creative wage with the study leader. The leading metro receives 100 points, and every other metro is measured relative to that result.

$75K Local Buying Power

The estimated national-price-equivalent value of the same fixed $75,000 salary in each metro. It isolates the effect of local prices and does not use local creative wages.

Rank Change

The difference between a metro’s nominal wage rank and its Real Paycheck rank. A positive result means the metro rises after local prices are applied, while a negative result means it falls.

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Methodology

This study examined where pay for selected creative occupations has the greatest purchasing power across 30 selected major U.S. metropolitan areas. The unit of analysis was the metropolitan statistical area, not the city proper. Shorter names such as San Francisco, New York City, and Washington are used as editorial labels for their corresponding metro areas.

The analysis combines annual median wage estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics with the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis’ 2024 Regional Price Parities.

Creative occupations included

The study used annual median wage estimates from the May 2025 BLS OEWS metro dataset for seven occupations:

• Art Directors — SOC 27-1011

• Graphic Designers — SOC 27-1024

• Producers and Directors — SOC 27-2012

• Writers and Authors — SOC 27-3043

• Editors — SOC 27-3041

• Photographers — SOC 27-4021

• Special Effects Artists and Animators — SOC 27-1014

The annual median wage was used instead of the mean because the median is less affected by a relatively small number of unusually highly paid workers.

OEWS is occupation-based and cross-industry. A writer, editor, photographer, designer, producer, or art director may work in any industry included in the survey, not only in film, publishing, advertising, design, or another conventionally defined creative industry.

Building the nominal creative-wage benchmark

For each metro, the study calculated the unweighted median of the available annual median wages for the seven occupations:

Nominal Creative-Wage Benchmark = Median of the published annual median wages for the seven selected occupations

The calculation is unweighted. Each occupation contributes one published wage estimate, regardless of the number of people employed in that occupation locally.

For example, an art director wage receives the same weight as a graphic designer wage. This prevents one large occupation from determining the result, but it also means that the benchmark does not reproduce the actual occupational mix of each metro.

The result should be described as a creative-wage benchmark. It is not the pooled median salary of all creative workers because it is calculated from separate occupation-level medians rather than individual worker records.

Minimum data coverage

The BLS OEWS dataset does not contain a publishable annual median wage for every occupation in every metro. Some estimates are unavailable or suppressed.

A metro required published annual median wages for at least five of the seven selected occupations to receive an overall Real Paycheck Index rank.

Coverage in the final dataset was:

• 19 metros with complete seven-of-seven coverage.

• 10 metros with six-of-seven coverage.

• Detroit with five-of-seven coverage.

Missing or suppressed estimates remained Not available. They were not:

• Replaced with zero.

• Estimated from the annual mean.

• Filled with a state or national value.

• Imputed from another occupation.

• Carried forward from another year.

The nominal creative-wage benchmark was calculated only from the published annual median wages available for that metro.

Adjusting wages for local prices

Local price levels came from the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ 2024 Regional Price Parities by State and Metro Area.

Regional Price Parity compares the overall price level in a metro with the national price level:

• An RPP of 100 represents national-average prices.

• An RPP of 110 indicates prices approximately 10% above the national average.

• An RPP of 90 indicates prices approximately 10% below the national average.

The study used the all-items RPP, which covers the broader mix of consumer goods and services, including housing rents.

The nominal creative-wage benchmark was adjusted as follows:

Cost-Adjusted Creative Wage = Nominal Creative-Wage Benchmark ÷ (Regional Price Parity ÷ 100)

For example, a $90,000 benchmark in a metro with an RPP of 110 becomes:

$90,000 ÷ 1.10 = $81,818

The result expresses the benchmark in national-average-price-equivalent purchasing power.

A metro with prices above the national average receives a downward adjustment. A metro with prices below the national average receives an upward adjustment.

The article converts the RPP values into reader-friendly labels such as “16% higher,” “5% lower,” and “About average.” These labels are rounded for presentation, but every calculation uses the underlying unrounded RPP value.

The cost-adjusted result is not take-home pay. It does not represent the amount remaining after rent, taxes, debt, childcare, transportation, or other household expenses.

Building the Real Paycheck Index

Metros were ranked from highest to lowest using their unrounded cost-adjusted creative-wage benchmarks.

The results were then converted into a leader-relative index:

Real Paycheck Index = Metro Cost-Adjusted Creative Wage ÷ Highest Metro Cost-Adjusted Creative Wage × 100

San Francisco recorded the highest cost-adjusted benchmark and therefore received 100 index points.

A score of 80 means that the metro’s cost-adjusted benchmark is approximately 80% of San Francisco’s result. It does not mean that the metro is 20% below the national average.

The Real Paycheck Index is a rescaling of the cost-adjusted creative-wage benchmark. It does not include:

• Employment totals.

• Job openings.

• Jobs per 1,000 workers.

• Occupational concentration.

• The fixed-$75,000 comparison.

• A separate housing or affordability score.

Calculating the fixed-$75,000 comparison

The fixed-salary analysis uses the same 2024 BEA Regional Price Parities, but holds salary constant at $75,000 in every metro.

This isolates the effect of regional prices without including differences in local occupational wages.

The study calculated:

$75K Local Buying Power = $75,000 ÷ (Regional Price Parity ÷ 100)

The dollar difference from the original salary was calculated as:

Gain or Loss vs. $75K = $75K Local Buying Power − $75,000

The percentage change was calculated as:

Buying-Power Change = ($75K Local Buying Power ÷ $75,000 − 1) × 100

A positive result means that the fixed salary has more purchasing power than it would at national-average prices. A negative result means that it has less.

The fixed-$75,000 analysis is separate from the Real Paycheck Index. It was not added as another index component because Regional Price Parity is already used in the main wage adjustment. Adding the fixed-salary result to the index would effectively count regional prices twice.

Measuring rank gains and losses

The rank-movement section compares each metro’s position before and after regional prices are applied.

The calculations were:

Nominal Wage Rank = Rank of the Nominal Creative-Wage Benchmark from highest to lowest

Real Paycheck Rank = Rank of the Cost-Adjusted Creative Wage from highest to lowest

Places Gained or Lost = Nominal Wage Rank − Real Paycheck Rank

Interpretation:

• A positive result means the metro rises after local prices are considered.

• A negative result means the metro falls.

• Zero means its position does not change.

Rank movement is relative to all 30 metros. It should be described as a rank gain or rank loss, not as dollars added to or removed from a salary.

Where multiple metros gained or lost the same number of places, they were ordered for presentation by their final Real Paycheck rank. The number of positions moved remained the primary comparison measure.

Calculating occupation-specific rankings

The final section combines each published annual median wage from the May 2025 BLS OEWS data with the corresponding metro’s 2024 BEA Regional Price Parity.

For each available metro–occupation estimate:

Occupation-Specific Adjusted Median = Published Annual Median Wage ÷ (Regional Price Parity ÷ 100)

Metros were ranked independently for each occupation.

Only metros with a published annual median wage for that occupation entered its ranking. Missing or suppressed estimates remained Not available and were not treated as zero.

The number of ranked metros varied by occupation:

• Art Directors: 29 metros.

• Graphic Designers: 29 metros.

• Producers and Directors: 29 metros.

• Writers and Authors: 27 metros.

• Editors: 29 metros.

• Photographers: 29 metros.

• Special Effects Artists and Animators: 26 metros.

The gap between the strongest and weakest available metro for each occupation was calculated as:

Top-to-Bottom Gap = Highest Adjusted Annual Median − Lowest Adjusted Annual Median

The calculation uses the underlying unrounded adjusted wages. As a result, subtracting the rounded values shown in the article may produce a slightly different figure.

Each occupation ranking is independent. A metro’s result for one career does not determine its rank for another career or its overall Real Paycheck Index position.

Things to keep in mind

The seven occupations provide a practical creative-pay benchmark, but they do not represent the entire creative economy. The study excludes roles including actors, musicians, fashion designers, interior designers, architects, advertising sales workers, social media specialists, and independent content creators.

The occupations are not weighted by local employment. A smaller occupation contributes equally to the benchmark when its wage estimate is available.

The adjusted values do not account for federal, state, or local taxes; benefits; bonuses; overtime; health insurance; debt; savings; household income; or the number of earners in a household.

The Real Paycheck Index measures purchasing power, not job availability. A high-ranking metro does not necessarily have more job openings, more stable creative employment, or easier access to senior-level roles.

The findings are descriptive, not causal. They do not establish that regional prices cause local wages, that moving to a particular metro will increase an individual worker’s purchasing power, or that a metro’s position results from a particular policy or industry cluster.