2026 Edition · An annual reference on what work pays

Cooks, Short Order

Ithaca, NY metropolitan area. Estimated employment 130.

Data released May 2025 BLS OEWS · SOC 35-2015
Fig. 1 — The wage rule

Where you sit in the distribution

Drag the marker, or type a figure
$36,200 · 50th
$32,24010th
$33,78025th
$36,20050th
$42,97075th
$44,52090th

That is the medianhalf of people in this occupation in Ithaca earn more.

Table 1 — Adjusted

$36,200 in Ithaca buys what $35,000 buys across the country as a whole.

Ithaca's regional price parity is 103.3 — above the national average, so the nominal figure overstates what it buys. Adjusted figures for other metros are in the nearby-metros table below.

Table 2 — Nearby metros

The same job, elsewhere in New York

Adjusted figures apply each metro's regional price parity, so the columns are directly comparable.

Metro areaMedianAdjustedRPPvs. Ithaca
Rochester$36,580$37,70097.0+7.6%
Kingston$36,310$36,100100.7+2.9%
Ithaca This page$36,200$35,000103.3
Syracuse$36,190$37,80095.7+7.9%
Kiryas Joel$36,170$33,100109.4−5.7%
Glens Falls$35,950$37,90094.9+8.2%
New York$35,360$31,400112.6−10.3%
Binghamton$35,240$37,90092.9+8.3%

Price parity and difference against Ithaca are in the full table on wider screens.

Fig. 2 — Five-year trend

Nominal against real

The same median, once as published and once restated in 2025 dollars.

35k40k45k50k 2022202320242025
Nominal, as published Real, in 2025 dollars US$ thousands

Published pay fell 14.1% over the four years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it fell 21.9% — prices rose faster than pay since 2022. The two lines meet at the right edge by construction, since 2025 is the base year.

Sources

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
130 employed in this occupation in the metro (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
Occupation
SOC 35-2015, Cooks, Short Order. Mapped to our taxonomy as cooks-short-order.

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.