Wages in Woonsocket
Since 2011, the median Woonsocket household earned 49% more. After inflation, that raise is worth about 10%. Over the same years, a house here got 170% pricier, the electric bill 90%, and Netflix 150%. On every chart below, the paycheck is the slowest line.
Median household income is the middle of the middle. Woonsocket kept pace with the country and fell behind its own state, where wealthier towns pull the average up.
A median household counts every earner under one roof, so it is not the same as one person's wage. Woonsocket's estimate carries a margin of error up to about $5,300, so read the line as a band, not a pinpoint.
The same Woonsocket paycheck, told two ways. One is the number on the check. The other is what it buys once prices are stripped out.
Inflation absorbed about four-fifths of the raise. The dollars grew; what they buy moved far less.
Set the 2011 paycheck, and the 2011 price of ordinary things, all at 100. Then watch. Every line above the paycheck is something that outran it. The dashed line is inflation, the break-even.
The home line is a median of actual sales, which runs hot in a thin market, so it reads the top-end of the climb, not quality-adjusted value.
How far each service's standard ad-free plan climbed from the day it launched to 2026, next to inflation over the same years.
HBO Max is the one that roughly tracked inflation; it launched expensive. The rest launched cheap and climbed.
One paycheck beat inflation: the one the state sets. Rhode Island's minimum wage rose 76% from 2011 to 2023, and reached $15.00 in 2025. The floor the law guarantees grew faster than the middle paycheck the market pays. The federal minimum has not changed since 2009.