2026 Edition · An annual reference on what work pays

Firefighters

Rochester, NY metropolitan area. Estimated employment 730.

Data released May 2025 BLS OEWS · SOC 33-2011
Fig. 1 — The wage rule

Where you sit in the distribution

Drag the marker, or type a figure
$89,120 · 50th
$57,28010th
$75,04025th
$89,12050th
$89,12075th
$93,81090th

That is the medianhalf of firefighters in Rochester earn more.

Table 1 — Adjusted

$89,120 in Rochester buys what $91,800 buys across the country as a whole.

Rochester's regional price parity is 97.0 — 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.

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. Rochester
New York$106,420$94,500112.6+2.9%
Rochester This page$89,120$91,80097.0
Binghamton$81,810$88,10092.9−4.1%
Kiryas Joel$76,120$69,600109.4−24.3%
Utica$75,060$81,00092.7−11.8%
Buffalo$74,470$77,70095.8−15.4%
Albany$70,840$71,10099.6−22.5%
Watertown$60,700$69,20087.7−24.6%

Price parity and difference against Rochester 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.

70k80k90k100k 20212022202320242025
Nominal, as published Real, in 2025 dollars US$ thousands

Published pay rose 17.8% over the five years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it is roughly flat — firefighters in Rochester earn about what they earned in 2021. 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
730 employed in this occupation in the metro (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
Occupation
SOC 33-2011, Firefighters. Mapped to our taxonomy as firefighters.

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.