How to read this study
Three releases, one explicit join.
Direct geography and occupation
RentMarker admits only five-digit BLS metropolitan area codes that exactly equal the current metropolitan CBSA attached to a RentMarker market. The occupation code is the detailed SOC code printed above. Nonmetropolitan BLS areas are preserved in source storage but are never assigned to a micropolitan market, county or city for this study.
Transparent housing ratio
Monthly Zillow Observed Rent Index is multiplied by twelve and divided by the unrounded BLS annual median wage. ZORI describes observed asking rents across a metro; it is not a lease quote, unit-size guarantee or estimate for housing near one employer. One occupational wage is not household income, and the ratio excludes taxes, dependents, utilities, debt and multiple earners.
Regional price translation
Where BEA publishes a metropolitan all-items Regional Price Parity, the table divides the nominal median wage by RPP divided by one hundred. The resulting value is labelled RPP-adjusted wage. It is a purchasing-power translation against a national price level—not take-home pay, a personal budget or an input to the rent ratio.
Survey and timing boundary
OEWS covers wage-and-salary jobs and combines six survey panels over three years using modeled estimation. It excludes self-employed workers and can suppress employment or wage measures. BLS, Zillow and BEA periods remain printed separately because the releases are not synchronized. Missing fields remain unavailable rather than being filled from a broader geography.
Across the direct records on this page, the median RPP-adjusted occupational wage is $68,081. That context is shown separately from the median nominal wage of $62,490 and the median rent-to-wage share of 28.6%; combining them into one score would hide the assumptions that a reader needs to inspect.