Graphic Designers
New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ metropolitan area. Estimated employment 15,160.
Where you sit in the distribution
That is the median — half of graphic designers in New York earn more.
$79,280 in New York buys what $70,400 buys across the country as a whole.
New York's regional price parity is 112.6 — well above the national average — a dollar here buys noticeably less than in the US as a whole. 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. New York |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York This page | $79,280 | $70,400 | 112.6 | — |
| Kiryas Joel | $63,560 | $58,100 | 109.4 | −17.5% |
| Rochester | $63,530 | $65,500 | 97.0 | −7.0% |
| Albany | $63,200 | $63,500 | 99.6 | −9.9% |
| Kingston | $61,410 | $61,000 | 100.7 | −13.4% |
| Ithaca | $61,250 | $59,300 | 103.3 | −15.8% |
| Buffalo | $60,000 | $62,600 | 95.8 | −11.1% |
| Utica | $58,550 | $63,200 | 92.7 | −10.3% |
Price parity and difference against New York are in the full table on wider screens.
Who pays what
Median offered salary from visa filings, which disclose employer, title and exact figure. Government wage surveys never publish at this level.
| Employer | Median offer | Range | Filings | vs. metro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $191,000 | $150k – $224k | 7 | +140.9% | |
| Spotify Usa | $189,190 | $97k – $196k | 5 | +138.6% |
| Amazon Com Services | $155,000 | $105k – $177k | 16 | +95.5% |
Offer ranges and filing counts 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 7.2% over the five years to 2025. Adjusted for inflation it fell 9.8% — prices rose faster than pay 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.
- Employer pay
- Department of Labor, Labor Condition Application disclosures, FY 2025. The table draws on 28 certified filings across 3 employers.
- Inflation
- Real figures deflate by CPI-U annual averages (BLS, all items, US city average).
- Employment
- 15,160 employed in this occupation in the metro (BLS estimate; excludes the self-employed).
- Occupation
- SOC 27-1024, Graphic Designers. Mapped to our taxonomy as graphic-designers.
Percentiles are reported exactly as released and are never interpolated between published values. Visa filings record offered base salary at time of application, exclude equity and bonus, and skew toward larger employers — treat the employer table as a floor, not an average. We take no payment from employers, recruiters or anyone else for how any figure is presented.