Top Metros for Cabinetmakers in 2026: New York, LA, and Chicago Stand Out on Pay and Scale

Across the 10 top-ranked metros for cabinetmakers and bench carpenters, LaborCove’s data shows considerable variation in pay, employment counts, and Geography Scores, even though all of these locations rank near the top nationally. Several metros, including New York-Newark-Jersey City, Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, Boston-Cambridge-Newton, and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, show median salaries noticeably above the national median. Others, such as Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington and Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, combine relatively large employment counts with median pay closer to or below the national figure. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim stands out for having the largest reported employment count among these top metros while holding the #2 ranking. Nationally, cabinetmakers and bench carpenters have a median annual salary of $46,680 and employment of 77,170, with a projected national employment decline of 1.6%. Each of the top metros sits within this broader national picture but differs in how salary, employment, and Geography Score align, which is reflected in the rankings.

For 2026, cabinetmakers and bench carpenters have a reported national median annual salary of $46,680 and total national employment of 77,170. These figures provide a benchmark for evaluating metro-level results in the rest of this article. The occupation’s national projected employment growth is -1.6%, indicating a modest projected decline in employment when viewed across the entire country. This projection is national in scope and does not describe conditions in any specific state or metro area. When metro figures are compared to these national benchmarks, they highlight how certain locations differ in median pay and employment counts for this occupation, even as all of them sit within the same national labor-market context.

Among the 10 metros highlighted here, New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ holds the #1 rank with a LaborCove Geography Score of 75.93. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA follows at #2 with a Geography Score of 70.03, and Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN ranks #3 with a score of 60.66. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX complete the top five with Geography Scores of 58.38 and 58.06, respectively. The remaining metros—Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA; Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH; San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA; Elkhart-Goshen, IN; and Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI—show Geography Scores between 54.05 and 57.94. These scores show that even within the top 10, there is a measurable spread in LaborCove’s Geography Score, with New York-Newark-Jersey City scoring higher than the other metros listed and Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington at the lower end of the top-10 range.

Several of the top-ranked metros report median annual salaries for cabinetmakers and bench carpenters above the national median of $46,680. New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ has a median salary of $60,240, which is higher than the national benchmark. Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN also exceeds the national figure with a median salary of $56,410. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA reports a median salary of $59,870, while Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH sits at $59,120 and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA at $58,620. Each of these metros has a median salary above the $46,680 national median. By contrast, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX shows a median salary of $38,760, which is below the national median. Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA, at $45,120, and Elkhart-Goshen, IN, at $46,240, sit slightly below the $46,680 national figure, while Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA at $47,960 and Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI at $49,650 are above it.

Employment counts show how many cabinetmaker and bench carpenter positions are represented in each metro’s data, without indicating job openings or employer numbers. Among the top 10 metros, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA has the largest reported employment count at 2,630, followed by Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX with 2,370. New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ has an employment count of 2,020, while Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA reports 1,950 and Elkhart-Goshen, IN reports 1,830. These counts are all above 1,400. Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN has an employment count of 1,420, slightly above Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI at 1,370. Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH reports 790 jobs, San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA reports 660, and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA reports 320, the smallest employment count among these 10 metros.

The top 10 list illustrates that the highest median salary does not automatically correspond to the highest Geography Score or the largest employment count. For example, New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ ranks #1 with a Geography Score of 75.93 and has a median salary of $60,240 and employment of 2,020. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA, ranked #2, has the largest employment count at 2,630 but reports a median salary of $47,960, which is lower than New York-Newark-Jersey City’s median salary. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA, ranked #4 with a Geography Score of 58.38, has a median salary of $59,870 and employment of 660, while Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX, ranked #5, has a lower median salary of $38,760 but a larger employment count of 2,370. Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN combines a median salary of $56,410 with employment of 1,420 at the #3 ranking. These differences show that metros can rank close together while offering distinct combinations of pay levels, employment counts, and Geography Scores, giving cabinetmakers and bench carpenters multiple ways to compare locations based on which metrics matter most to them.

LaborCove’s metro rankings for cabinetmakers and bench carpenters are based on authoritative labor-market data and the proprietary LaborCove Geography Score. For this Insight, we use the supplied national benchmarks for salary, employment, and projected national employment growth, alongside metro-level median annual salary, employment counts, and Geography Scores. The Geography Score is a composite indicator used to rank metros, but this article does not infer how much each input contributes to the final score. Instead, it focuses on transparent, numeric comparisons that can be directly observed in the data. Readers should interpret these rankings as one structured view of the labor market rather than a prescription, and weigh them alongside personal priorities such as preferred industries, non-work considerations, and individual career stage.