Okay, so you've recognized that Bellevue lives up to its name: it's beautiful. There are lots of great parks, friendly neighborhoods, attractive homes. It would be a great place to live. But how are you going to pay your mortgage? If you sell waste water treatment chemicals online, that's great, but what about the rest of Bellevue's 123,000 residents? How do they make their living? Many of them commute to nearby Seattle for work, but a significant portion are employed right here in Bellevue in local business and industry. The following is an overview of how Bellevue manages to support itself and its citizens.

Compared to the rest of Washington, Bellevue residents are doing really well for themselves. The median household income for a Bellevue family is in excess of $78,000, more than $20,000 above the Washington average. That's over $44,000 per person! What this means, of course, is that Bellevue residents can afford to have the best, so the cost of living is correspondingly higher, which is acting like x-ray shielding against the recession. The United States average is around 100 while Bellevue currently sits just above 128, putting living in the city out of the range of a lot of average people. Some end up living here anyway, though, which is why almost 7% of residents are living in poverty.

How do Bellevue residents manage to afford their homes and lifestyles? Three words: low unemployment rate. Though unemployment has gone up recently due to the recession, it has only reached 6.7 percent, which is about three percent less than the Washington average. It also helps that Bellevue's workforce is highly educated, with more than half of residents possessing a bachelor's degree or higher. Meaning the list of most popular jobs will not include slurry mixer operator. Educated workforces draw in high-end companies like Microsoft, who are willing to pay bigger salaries for top drawer workers.

Technology is the biggest employment sector in Bellevue, especially for men. Some of the companies with major operations in the city are video game developers like 5th Cell and Valve, online businesses like Expedia.com and Drugstore.com, and communications companies like T-Mobil. Other big moneymakers for the city are the wall quotes-selling retail shopping industry and health care, which is the biggest employment sector for women. The most popular jobs in Bellevue are computer specialists, managers, engineers, office support workers, sales representatives, and business executives.

If you're used to working with machinery and fire sleeves, you won't be thrown completely out on your ear if you show up in Bellevue, however. A sizeable portion of the male workforce (about 13%) is employed in manufacturing and construction. There are several architecture firms which hire construction contractors to erect their creations. Boeing, an aircraft manufacturing company, is the third largest employer in the city, and the Orahealth Company makes pharmaceutical products in their Bellevue factories. The biggest draw for skilled workers though is the Paccar Company, which is a world-class producer of 18-wheel trucks with names such as Kenworth and Peterbuilt.