The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) just released annual pay data for 2022 for all counties in the U.S. Locally, Burke County has the highest annual pay at $98,427, followed by Aiken County at $48,118. The BLS has not yet provided a breakdown of the average annual pay by industry, but it is likely that these high county averages represent engineers at Plant Vogtle and Savannah River Site.
The more rural counties of Lincoln and Edgefield saw the largest percentage change in average annual income between 2021 and 2022, with pay increasing at 7.9 percent and 6.1 percent, respectively. Other counties did not see annual pay increases keep pace with inflation.
Average annual pay hides the distribution of pay around the mean. The income ratio measures the ratio of the mean income for the highest quintile (top 20 percent) of earners divided by the mean income of the lowest quintile (bottom 20 percent) of earners. So, although Burke County has the highest average annual pay, it also has a high level of income inequality. As well as those high-paying engineers, there are a lot of lower-paying jobs. Edgefield County has the highest level of income inequality in the metro area and Columbia County has the lowest.
