Cities where white-collar incomes have jumped the most in the last four years are not necessarily commercial hot spots.

Payscale, a Seattle-based online provider of employee compensation data, identifies urban areas where college graduates saw the most income growth between 2005 and 2009. The cities are scattered throughout the country and prove that even during a recession, it’s not where you live that matters nearly as much as what you do.

"When the crash comes, and you lay off 75 percent, you tend to keep the higher-paid jobs. So your salary base goes up," says Cynthia Kroll, economist at the Fisher Center of Real Estate and Urban Economics at the University of California Berkeley.

"It's not that highly skilled people don't also get laid off, but the mix is going to be weighted toward the more experienced, more skilled workers that you're going to need when growth comes back," she says.

Here are the 10 cities where Pay scale says incomes rose the most:

  • El Paso, Texas
  • Bakersfield, Calif.
  • Omaha-Council Bluffs, Neb.
  • Virginia Beach/Norfolk, Va.
  • Des Moines
  • Honolulu
  • Boise City, Idaho
  • Allentown-Bethlehem, Pa.
  • Charlotte
  • Phoenix


Source: Forbes, Francesca Levy (12/15/2009)