If you think it's tough to get ahead here in Hawai'i, you're right.

Salary.com released its annual Salary Value Index today and listed Honolulu as the fourth worst city in America to build personal wealth.

The annual SIV ranks the best and worst American cities in which to build personal wealth.

Topping the list as the best city is Plano, Texas, while the high cost of living in New York City placed it at the bottom of this year's list.

Best Cities to Build Personal Wealth

1. Plano, Texas

2. Aurora, Colo.

3. Omaha, Neb.

4. Minneapolis, Minn.

5. Albuquerque, N.M.

Worst Cities to Build Personal Wealth

1. New York, New York

2. Washington, D.C.

3. Los Angeles, Calif.

4. Honolulu, Hawai'i

5. San Francisco, Calif.

To view the complete list of the 2008 Salary Value Index cities, visit http://svi.salary.com.

Salary.com developed the SVI to quantify relative differences in the value of individual salaries among large cities in the United States.

Local salaries, the cost of living and unemployment rates from cities with 250,000 or more residents were included.

Although the primary focus of this analysis is the relationship between living costs and pay, additional second-order measures were taken into consideration this year – including diversity of industry, education level of the cities' population, proximity to post-secondary institutions, percent of population below poverty level and median travel time to work.