The data, in fact, covers about 800 occupations and more than 400 metropolitan areas. It's available for free on the Internet at the BLS Web site for Occupational Employment Statistics (www.bls.gov/oes ).

"I think for cities of, let's say, over a couple of hundred thousand, the numbers are likely to be very reliable," said Peter Orazem, an economics professor at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.

However, in Orazem's hometown of Ames -- one of the nation's smallest metropolitan statistical areas -- the information can be unreliable and needs to be compared with salaries statewide or in larger metro areas within the same state.

Just graduated from technical school as a certified auto mechanic? The San Francisco area paid the top annual average last year of just over $50,000.

Housing costs are not as high in South Jersey, where the BLS estimates the average correctional officer in the largely rural Vineland-Millville-Bridgeton metropolitan area earned the highest pay in the nation last year -- $58,600. The area has several state prisons, including the 3,300-inmate South Woods State Prison. Statewide, correctional officers averaged $54,800 last year.

"You are walking in off the street making $50,000 without a college degree if you pass the test and go through the academy," said Joseph Malagrino, president of PBA Local 105 which represents 6,000 New Jersey state correctional officers. "But you are getting paid for the risks."

The current top annual salary of $70,480 for a New Jersey correctional officer with 12 1/2 years experience will increase to $72,136 on Dec. 23.

Off-duty New Jersey correctional officers are not allowed to make motor vehicle stops, but they are required to provide assistance to police officers at a crime scene, according to Stewart Harris, a PBA union leader who represents state correctional officers in southern New Jersey.

Harris earns the same salary as other members of his union with at least 12.5 years on the job -- $70,480 -- which will increase to $72,136 in late December.

Harris, 44, plans to retire next June on a pension that will pay him 65 percent of what he earned as a correctional officer. Additionally, the insurance premium for his retiree health benefits will be paid by the state.

Having health insurance covered by the state is important to correctional officers, said Harris, noting that at work they are exposed to prisoners with HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis.

The government database doesn't track earnings among the self-employed. But it does highlight how workers in many trades are paid considerably more in some places than in others.

Bill Raabe, director of collective bargaining for the 3.2 million-member National Education Association, says that's long been the case for teachers.

According to the BLS, the highest average salary of a kindergarten teacher was $69,420 in Nassau and Suffolk counties of New York's Long Island.

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