Employees' Paychecks Are Getting Bigger In These Cities

Although the U.S. national unemployment rate was 7.8 percent at the end of 2012, some cities are experiencing economic recovery faster than others.

According to a recently released Payscale Index, Houston, Seattle, Boston, Riverside and Dallas showed the biggest wage increases in the past year.

Workers in these cities experienced the strongest wage growth because these metro areas lead in terms of job creation in growing sectors of the economy, such as tech or the energy industry.

Houston hosts a variety of strong industries, including aeronautics and healthcare, but the boom in the oil and gas industry has had the biggest positive impact on wages in the city.

Joel Kotkin and Michael Shires at Forbes wrote that Texas has added around 200,000 "generally high-paying oil and gas jobs over the past decade."

Seattle, Boston, Riverside and Dallas are all known for their strong tech presence.

According to the Payscale Index, the metro cities with the least annual wage growth was Washington D.C. at 1.6 percent,

The chart below shows the wage growth compiled by Payscale:

Payscale

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