Boston rents catching up with New York City, even though salaries aren't

By Courtney Cole, WBZ-TV News

BOSTON - New York City has long been known for crazy rent prices, but Boston is catching up.

Just ask anyone in Southie, the hottest neighborhood for the 20-something crowd just starting their careers. 

"Rent cost like a million dollars," one woman told WBZ-TV while walking her dog near the L Street Bathhouse. 

"It's astronomical," another woman said.

So how do Boston salaries stack up against those in New York? We compared several on Salary.com.

In New York, the average salary for an information technology job is $93,000 compared to about $85,000 in Boston. A traffic engineer makes about $113,000 in New York and $106,000 in Boston and a hi-tech salesperson will make $107,000 in New York and $94,000 here.

"I don't think they [employers] have been able to keep up with the cost-of-living changes that have rapidly impacted employees," explained Elaine Varelas of Keystone Partners, a career management firm in Boston.

But according to Varelas, staffing shortages have forced some companies to pay a premium to new hires to fill empty positions. 

"So new hires are seeing the increase in pay. The challenge with that is employees that are staying with their organization are not seeing raises," she said.

So what do you do when you find out the new hire working in the cubicle right next to you makes more money?

Varelas' advice is to research the pay for your current job and then ask your manager this: "If you were going to fill my job, you would pay 15% more than what I am making. I'm not asking for 15%, but I need more than the cost of living," she said.

Another Southie resident we talked to knows all too well how those cost of living increases don't make much of a difference. 

"I technically got a market adjustment for cost-of-living, but I didn't even notice a difference in my paycheck," she said.

There's always the option to search for a New York based job that allows remote work, that way you can stay in Boston and still earn that New York salary.

And it's now easier than ever to compare salaries across the two cities. New York just passed a law requiring employers to post salary ranges on job postings.