These Are The 10 Highest Police Officer Salaries By State

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Police Officer Salaries By State

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Without fail, in surveys across basically every demographic, the number one most important aspect of a job for most people is the salary — how much do deputy sheriffs get paid where I live?

And while there are many things to go into how much you can expect to make, there’s really good data for average salaries for police officers by state across America broken down by seniority level. So while your city may be slightly different than the state average, these averages give you a rough sense of what to expect for your salary.

So to better understand how police officer salaries change across America, we decided to take a look the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on average pay for police officers by state.

Additionally, we wanted to adjust the salary based on the cost of living in a state — because your salary goes further in North Carolina than it does in California.

The state with the best salary for police officers after this adjustment? That would be California. Here’s a quick snapshot of the top ten states for police officer salaries:

Let’s take a look at how we got here and a full ranking of all the states.

How we determined police officer pay by state

As we mentioned earlier, we took the average annual salary data for police officers from the 2015 Bureau of Labor Statistics — specifically their “Occupational Employment Statistics”.

However, to make the comparison of salaries apples to apples across states, we also took into account the living wage in each state as defined by MIT.

We then created an index by dividing the average wage for a state by the living wage in that state. As an example, the living wage in California is $57,315 and the average police officer pay is $93,550, so our index value would be:

$93,550 / $57,315 = 1.63

We then ranked every state on this criteria with the state with the highest salary index ranking as highest average salary for police officers.

Here’s a look at the full ranking for all states.

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Detailed List Of Deputy Sheriff Salaries By State

Rank	State	Adjusted Salary	Average Wage	Living Wage
1	California	$82,345	$93,550	$57,315
2	New Jersey	$80,168	$89,160	$56,109
3	Washington	$72,982	$74,170	$51,271
4	Alaska	$71,622	$77,230	$54,400
5	Nevada	$68,287	$71,330	$52,698
6	Illinois	$67,432	$69,910	$52,304
7	Pennsylvania	$64,162	$63,480	$49,914
8	Oregon	$64,049	$65,890	$51,900
9	Delaware	$62,445	$65,740	$53,112
10	Ohio	$61,713	$56,090	$45,853
11	Colorado	$61,618	$65,700	$53,792
12	Texas	$61,502	$58,710	$48,160
13	Arizona	$59,646	$60,700	$51,341
14	New York	$58,992	$69,140	$59,128
15	Michigan	$58,593	$56,720	$48,837
16	Minnesota	$57,415	$59,310	$52,115
17	Wyoming	$56,383	$53,590	$47,951
18	Nebraska	$56,257	$53,610	$48,076
19	Iowa	$56,042	$54,300	$48,882
20	Connecticut	$55,917	$65,950	$59,502
21	North Dakota	$55,618	$51,610	$46,814
22	Florida	$55,488	$57,420	$52,206
23	Idaho	$55,141	$50,060	$45,801
24	Massachusetts	$54,422	$64,250	$59,560
25	Hawaii	$53,974	$64,940	$60,700
26	Wisconsin	$53,509	$54,220	$51,120
27	Maryland	$53,426	$61,610	$58,178
28	Montana	$53,179	$49,630	$47,083
29	Rhode Island	$52,866	$55,790	$53,240
30	Indiana	$52,768	$48,990	$46,838
31	Utah	$51,343	$48,770	$47,922
32	New Mexico	$50,901	$48,480	$48,050
33	Missouri	$50,527	$46,230	$46,159
34	Virginia	$49,656	$53,410	$54,264
35	South Dakota	$48,961	$44,070	$45,410
36	Kentucky	$48,961	$42,030	$43,308
37	New Hampshire	$48,753	$53,250	$55,103
38	Kansas	$47,653	$45,390	$48,054
39	Oklahoma	$47,308	$43,710	$46,613
40	Alabama	$46,680	$42,400	$45,824
41	Tennessee	$46,465	$43,090	$46,785
42	West Virginia	$46,169	$41,020	$44,823
43	Vermont	$45,570	$46,950	$51,977
44	North Carolina	$43,738	$42,980	$49,575
45	South Carolina	$43,703	$40,340	$46,568
46	Maine	$42,854	$43,580	$51,305
47	Arkansas	$42,254	$37,330	$44,571
48	Georgia	$41,573	$39,510	$47,946
49	Louisiana	$40,065	$38,100	$47,975
50	Mississippi	$36,509	$33,350	$46,084

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Author

Chris Kolmar

Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job. His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news. More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.

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