Compared with the local labor market
Planning Specialist pay vs. the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI area
Across all employers in the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI area, the median wage for Urban and Regional Planners — about 580 people — is $103,970. Public Works pays a median base salary of $89,006 for this role, 14% below that figure — about the 29th percentile of local pay for the occupation.
Where Public Works sits in the local pay range
$70,020
$86,370
$103,970
$110,540
$129,500
Public Works median · $89,006
The bar is the range of annual wages for Urban and Regional Planners across every employer in the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI area, from the 10th to the 90th percentile, with the middle 50% highlighted. The marker shows Public Works’s median base salary for this role. Both figures are base pay only.
And across the country
Nationwide, the median wage for Urban and Regional Planners — about 44,230 people — is $89,320. Public Works’s median base salary is in line withthat national figure, about the 50th percentile of pay for the occupation nationally.
$60,010
$72,020
$89,320
$110,030
$134,490
Public Works median · $89,006
Local and national wages differ for reasons beyond how well a job pays — cost of living, the mix of employers, and local demand for the occupation all move the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI range relative to the national one.
Median total compensation for this role at Public Works is $89,698, which includes overtime and employer-paid benefits. The benchmark above excludes both, so total compensation is deliberately not compared against it.
Benchmark: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025). BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) covers all employers in the area — private, non-profit, and government alike — so this is a comparison against the whole local labor market for the occupation, not against private-sector pay. OEWS wages are straight-time pay and exclude overtime, shift differentials, and employer-paid benefits, so the government figure shown here is base pay on the same basis. Total compensation is not comparable to it. Job titles are matched to the closest standard occupation, so the comparison is between similar work rather than an identical job classification.