Chefs and Head Cooks
Buffalo-Cheektowaga, NY metropolitan area. Estimated employment 640.
Where you sit in the distribution
That is the median — half of people in this occupation in Buffalo earn more.
$74,290 in Buffalo buys what $77,500 buys across the country as a whole.
Buffalo's regional price parity is 95.8 — below the national average, so a dollar here goes further than the nominal figure suggests. Adjusted figures for other metros are in the nearby-metros table below.
The same job, elsewhere in New York
Adjusted figures apply each metro's regional price parity, so the columns are directly comparable.
| Metro area | Median | Adjusted | RPP | vs. Buffalo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Albany | $84,430 | $84,800 | 99.6 | +9.4% |
| Kingston | $74,710 | $74,200 | 100.7 | −4.3% |
| Buffalo This page | $74,290 | $77,500 | 95.8 | — |
| Kiryas Joel | $72,340 | $66,100 | 109.4 | −14.7% |
| New York | $71,780 | $63,800 | 112.6 | −17.7% |
| Glens Falls | $67,590 | $71,200 | 94.9 | −8.1% |
| Rochester | $66,080 | $68,100 | 97.0 | −12.1% |
| Syracuse | $64,170 | $67,000 | 95.7 | −13.5% |
Price parity and difference against Buffalo are in the full table on wider screens.
Nominal against real
The same median, once as published and once restated in 2025 dollars.
Published pay rose 47.1% over the five years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it still rose 23.8% — pay has outrun prices since 2021. The two lines meet at the right edge by construction, since 2025 is the base year.
How this page was made
- Wage data
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 release. Public domain.
- Price parity
- Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities, 2024.
- Inflation
- Real figures deflate by CPI-U annual averages (BLS, all items, US city average).
- Employment
- 640 employed in this occupation in the metro (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
- Occupation
- SOC 35-1011, Chefs and Head Cooks. Mapped to our taxonomy as chefs-and-head-cooks.
Percentiles are reported exactly as released and are never interpolated between published values. We take no payment from employers, recruiters or anyone else for how any figure is presented.