Best States for Transportation and Material Moving Supervisors in 2026

The data shows that the “best” states for this occupation reflect different mixes of pay, employment scale, and overall geography scores rather than a single clear winner on every metric. Washington and Maryland stand out for higher median salaries among the top ten, while California and Texas stand out for much larger employment counts. New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, Georgia, and Rhode Island fill in the middle with varying combinations of pay and employment that lead to distinct LaborCove rankings. Nationally, first-line supervisors of transportation and material moving workers have a median annual salary of $62,890 and employment of 623,640, with a projected national employment growth rate of 3.7%. Within that national picture, the top ten states listed here differ in how far their salaries sit above or below the national median and how large their employment counts are relative to one another, which helps explain why no single state leads on every dimension even when it ranks highly in the overall LaborCove Geography Score.

At the national level, first-line supervisors of transportation and material moving workers have a median annual salary of $62,890 and employment of 623,640 in the 2026 report year. National projected employment growth for this occupation is 3.7%, which describes the expected change for the United States as a whole rather than for any specific state. This national benchmark helps frame the state-by-state comparisons. When a state’s median salary is above or below $62,890, it shows how that location’s pay compares with the national midpoint for the occupation, while employment counts indicate how many jobs are observed in each state relative to other states in the top ten.

LaborCove’s top-ranked state for this occupation is California, with a LaborCove Geography Score of 73.53. Washington holds the second position with a score of 60.68, followed by Maryland at 59.00. These three states cluster at the top of the ranking, but they do so with different combinations of salary and employment. Texas ranks fourth with a Geography Score of 58.41, and New York ranks fifth at 57.96. New Jersey (55.93), Rhode Island (50.35), Illinois (48.46), Massachusetts (46.89), and Georgia (46.74) complete the top ten. The relatively close scores among much of this group underline that small numerical differences in the Geography Score can separate adjacent positions in the ranking.

Within the top ten, Washington has a median salary of $74,250, which is higher than the median salaries reported for California ($65,550) and Texas ($60,000). Maryland’s median salary of $74,070 is also higher than California’s and Texas’s medians. All four of these states, however, rank in the top four of the LaborCove Geography Score, indicating that high Geography Scores can accompany different pay levels. Several other states in the top ten also report median salaries above the national median of $62,890. New York’s median salary is $67,300, New Jersey’s is $67,980, Rhode Island’s is $72,750, Illinois’s is $65,420, Massachusetts’s is $65,570, and Georgia’s is $63,540. In contrast, Texas’s median salary of $60,000 is below the national median, even though Texas ranks fourth overall in the Geography Score.

California has an employment count of 67,920, which is larger than the employment counts of any of the other top-ten states listed. Texas has employment of 60,700, which is smaller than California’s but larger than New York’s employment of 29,280 and New Jersey’s employment of 25,110. Among the remaining states, Georgia reports employment of 26,660 and Illinois 25,270, while Washington has 14,000 and Maryland 11,990. Massachusetts and Rhode Island have smaller employment counts than these larger markets, with 10,660 and 1,520 jobs respectively. These differences in employment scale coexist with relatively close Geography Scores for several states, illustrating that the Geography Score ordering does not simply mirror the employment ranking among the top ten.

The relationship between median salary and LaborCove Geography Score among these states is not one-to-one. Washington’s median salary of $74,250 and Maryland’s $74,070 are the highest salaries listed in the top ten, but Washington ranks second and Maryland third in the Geography Score, while California leads the ranking despite a lower median salary of $65,550. A similar pattern appears further down the list. Texas ranks fourth in Geography Score with a median salary of $60,000, which is lower than the median salaries in New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Georgia. Rhode Island has a Geography Score of 50.35, lower than New Jersey’s 55.93, even though Rhode Island’s median salary of $72,750 is higher than New Jersey’s median salary of $67,980. These examples show that the Geography Score is not determined solely by salary levels and instead reflects a broader combination of factors in the LaborCove methodology.

LaborCove builds these rankings from authoritative labor-market data for the occupation and applies its LaborCove Geography Score to compare locations. For each state, we use the supplied median annual salary, employment, and Geography Score to generate relative rankings. National projected employment growth is used only as context for the occupation as a whole and is not applied to individual states. Because workers weigh factors differently, the LaborCove rankings should be considered alongside personal priorities. Some may focus on salary levels compared with the national median, others on the size of the local employment base, and others on the overall Geography Score. LaborCove does not estimate state-level growth rates or job-opening counts, and the rankings are not predictions of any individual’s hiring outcomes.