Guides to reading wage data
Short explanations of the federal statistics behind every page on this site, and of
the pay rules that decide what lands in your account — what they measure, what they hide,
and how to use them when you are weighing an actual offer.
Location is usually the largest single variable in what a job pays — and the one most salary guides omit.
A free federal statistic that shows which metros have a deep market for your role, and which barely have one.
How to read the 10th-to-90th percentile band, and what a wide band is telling you about a career.
Ranked by median wage across every detailed occupation the federal wage survey measures.
The federal overtime rule, what it is worth at real hourly rates, and who is excluded from it.
Shift premiums are not required by federal law — here is what they typically are and how they compound.
Why 26 paychecks and 24 paychecks are not the same thing, and what that does to budgeting.
Where the standard figure comes from, where it breaks, and why every salary conversion depends on it.
Some occupations pay four or five times more in one state than another. Ranked from federal wage data.
Location quotients reveal which occupations a state leans on far more than the country does.